Shrift Def Quotes

Across from the famous jewelry store on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-Seventh Street, we sat in the back of a graffiti-covered white box truck watching the world go by on the surveillance vehicle's hidden high-def camera. So far there had been no sign of the thieves. Or even Audrey Hepburn. ~ James Patterson

I guess something that you love to do, you gotta ease up off it and give it a little space, come back and be fresh to it. ~ Mos Def

They say that when a man faces his destiny, the destiny ends and he becomes the man that he really is. ~ Mos Def

Live now for the promise of the Infinite ~ Mos Def

Why did one straw break the camel's back?
Here's the secret:
The million other straws underneath it. ~ Mos Def

African art is functional, it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations. ~ Mos Def

I got my first exposure to Islam when I was 13. ~ Mos Def

I thought everybody got into rock 'n' roll because they didn't want to follow instructions. ~ Mos Def

Hard rock for me is AC/DC, Def Leppard, Tesla, Kiss. Metal tends to be louder, ruder, darker, like Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maiden. ~ Eddie Trunk

She heard music. Angels singing? she thought, dizzy. It seemed odd for angels to sing after table sex. She managed to swallow on a throat wildly dry. "Music," she murmured.
"My phone. In my pants. Don't care."
"Oh. Not angels."
"No. Def Leppard. ~ Nora Roberts

AHA!" interrupted Officer Shrift, making another note in his little book. "Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything. ~ Norton Juster

I believe the projects were a social experiment; we were laboratory rats stacked on top of each other, and people just knew, inherently, that there was something wrong. There's not a lot of regard for the property by the residents. ~ Mos Def

So rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable. But, that doesn't mean there aren't a great number of artists who are doing things to change that. ~ Mos Def

In the early '90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading. ~ Mos Def

I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly. ~ Mos Def

Sitcoms are usually given short shrift by the acting profession, but it's quite an amazing job. ~ Lea Thompson

People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star. ~ Talib Kweli

I'm growing as an individual, but your always growing. All of my albums are snapshots of where I am artistically. ~ Mos Def

I just didn't wanna put the pressure on myself to be in there [Def Jam South] to work as an artist and to have the hat as the executive with other projects. ~ DJ Khaled

Make today's solid ground out of yesterday's quicksand. ~ Mos Def

Why do I need ID to get ID?
If I had ID, I wouldn't need ID. ~ Mos Def

You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it's vital that a change happens now. ~ Mos Def

The passage that he had found in the book had been riddled with ambiguities and contradictions only reserved for those most valiant in overriding their legalistic forbearance into a necessary frenzy that would allow them to suitably work up a case for one side or the other on how the Law, without the possibility of misinterpretation, states If ABC, then DEF - or for the sake of acknowledging the counterargument first as a courtroom tactic, the case might also be made that the Law states the antithesis of the aforementioned If ABC, then DEF, but gives allowance within reasonable parameters for a provisional XYZ to be granted in exceptional cases. And thus, it was a matter not so much of making one's case in a clear and logical sense, but one for the lawyers to battle out in the arena of pathos, as it was clearly the emotional pleas that could evoke a sense of sympathy in the courtroom and overturn otherwise painstaking endeavors at using the tools at hand to make pleas based upon incontrovertible facts. ~ Ashim Shanker

My presence speaks volumes before I say a word. ~ Mos Def

Hip-Hop went from selling crack to smoking it ~ Mos Def

I'm just an artist and I'm doin' what I like to do. ~ Mos Def

I'm blacked than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle ~ Mos Def

Hip-hop is a beautiful culture. It's inspirational, because it's a culture of survivors. You can create beauty out of nothingness. ~ Mos Def

Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years it's a name that the streets taught me a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name and it's time to expand and move on. ~ Mos Def

The quality of life depends upon the ability of society to teach it's members how to live in harmony with their environment-def ined first as family, then the community, then the world and its resources. ~ Ellen Swallow Richards

I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about. ~ Mos Def

I don't wanna be def. Death. Dead. This Burger Twin nappykin just got served as my will, BEOTCH! The fries here suck, by the way. If I die, don't feed my son your shitty fries. Don't give my son to the creepy child molester king you put in your commercials either. What the fuck is wrong with that guy? He's got a normal body and a plastic face that is always smiley. It's not right, man. It's just not right. My ears feel funny. ~ Tara Sivec

Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop. ~ Mos Def

Ten Best Song to Strip
1. Any hip-swiveling R&B fuckjam. This category includes The Greatest Stripping Song of All Time: "Remix to Ignition" by R. Kelly.

2. "Purple Rain" by Prince, but you have to be really theatrical about it. Arch your back like Prince himself is daubing body glitter on your abdomen. Most effective in nearly empty, pathos-ridden juice bars.

3. "Honky Tonk Woman" by the Rolling Stones. Insta-attitude. Makes even the clumsiest troglodyte strut like Anita Pallenberg. (However, the Troggs will make you look like even more of a troglodyte, so avoid if possible.)

4. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard. The Lep's shouted choruses and relentless programmed drums prove ideal for chicks who can really stomp. (Coincidence: I once saw a stripper who, like Rick Allen, had only one arm.)

5. "Amber" by 311. This fluid stoner anthem is a favorite of midnight tokers at strip joints everywhere. Mellow enough that even the most shitfaced dancer can make it through the song and back to her Graffix bong without breaking a sweat. Pass the Fritos Scoops, dude.

6. "Miserable" by Lit, but mostly because Pamela Anderson is in the video, and she's like Jesus for strippers (blonde, plastic, capable of parlaying a broken nail into a domestic battery charge, damaged liver). Alos, you can't go wrong stripping to a song that opens with the line "You make me come."

7. "Back Door Man" by The Doors. Almost too eas ~ Diablo Cody

Look at music: I've always loved hiphop and rap, and now there's this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It's some of the best stuff around. ~ Ryan Phillippe

I don't mind being black. I'm black out loud. It's more than the people that they are, it's the condition that they represent. ~ Mos Def

I never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice. ~ Mos Def

I feel like I was the only person who was capable of making this type of music in this type of way. I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody. ~ Mos Def