Vermicious Def Quotes

Being black and speaking properly are not mutually exclusive. My father was an African, and he spoke beautifully at home. Nelson Mandela speaks beautifully. Should Mandela put his hat on backwards and say, 'Yo, homey, this is Nelson. Yo, Winnie, yo, this is def'? ~ Franklyn Ajaye

The world has wanted me to speak differently than I speak. I speak like my mom. I speak like the whitest white dude. I speak like a "Def Comedy Jam" comedian doing an impression of a white guy. ~ Jordan Peele

I still wasn't convinced that tossing a shoe didn't mean you harbored an anger-management problem, but I did understand love now. How it wrapped around you and made you more aware of the prickles on your skin, the roots of your hair, the intensity of every touch and every inch of you. It was like life on hi-def. Everything was sharper. ~ Erin McCarthy

It didn't occur to me that I was glistening with sweat and wearing a bikini top until they turned off the bikes, pulled off their helmets and turned to scope me out. To make my own personal cliché perfect, Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me blasted through the radio. I winced – I must look like a white-trash princess from hell, basking outside my trailer in a bikini to outdated butt rock. ~ Joanna Wylde

Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records. ~ Mos Def

Hip-hop is the last true folk art. ~ 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

I've always loved rhyming. I love language. ~ Mos Def

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

It wouldn't be fair to cast aspersions on an entire cultural movement based on the actions of a few. To quote my grandfather, 'One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch.' ~ Mos Def

There's probably a bunch of Power Stripe floating through the Def Jam offices right now. ~ Method Man

I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam's fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era. ~ Jay-Z

Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape now let it fall - HUNGH ~ Mos Def

Everything's got space between it, the planets, trees, your eyes. Your eyes get too close together, it's a whole different world. You can lose perspective. ~ Mos Def

A person's strength is to know their weaknesses. ~ Russell Simmons

I had an advantage because people would post me on blogs because I had co-signs from Kanye West, Def Jam, and G.O.O.D. Music. Everything I put out, the blogs would put up. When I realized that, I used that to my advantage and helped build my following on my own. ~ Big Sean

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

You've got to validate every day. There are those who just put a stamp on it and say, "This is gonna be a good day and I'm not gonna let anything else make it a bad day." ~ Mos Def

Justin Bieber is signed to Def Jam, and I don't believe in touching nothing that ain't mine. I want someone to give me the same respect - don't touch nothing that's mine. I still want what I want. But Justin Bieber is definitely a friend of a family. Me, Drake, Wayne. We rock with the little homie, so he a part of us in heart. ~ Birdman

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records. ~ Chuck D

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

Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients
Youngbloods can't spell, but they could rock you in PlayStation. ~ 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

Shit," Clutch said after a few minutes. "The high-def has totally ruined porn. Are those ingrown hairs? ~ Joanna Wylde

I don't read my own press, so I don't know what's being reported on a daily basis - I only hear about things when they reach a sort of Def-Con status, and my publicist calls me because we have to do some damage control. ~ Megan Fox

My radio's loud like a fire alarm:
The floor vibrates, the walls cave in,
The bass makes my eardrums seem thin.
Def sounds in my ride, yes the front and back ...
You would think it was a party, not a Cadillac! ~ LL Cool J

Def Leppard is a rock band that can sing. ~ Vivian Campbell

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

I think that Mos Def is the best actor, but when you talk about rappers in films, I don't really think the quality of the acting is most important because most rappers are put in movies because of the personality and people want to see that. ~ Morris Chestnut

Breathe in ... inhale vapors from bright stars that shine,
Breathe out ... weed smoke retrace the skyline. ~ Mos Def

I'm a little different from the average dude because I'm on high-def TV now. ~ Ray Romano

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

My Umi said shine your light on the world, shine your light for the world to see ~ Mos Def

Hi-def is merely the latest in a string of evolutional leaps that have transformed the way we sit slumped in front of a box wishing we were dead. ~ Charlie Brooker

Hip-hop is rock & roll. What the hell is Wu-Tang but Motorhead? ~ 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

AC/DC, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper - I learned stories of all these guys. That's when I fell in love with Queen, which is one of my favorite bands of all time ... I started paying attention to what made music good. I started paying attention to why I liked it. ~ Rico Love

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

Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can't articulate. ~ Mos Def

History has proven that it's impossible to crush the artist. There's always gonna be a need for somebody to write a poem or sing a song about something, about life - that makes it real. There's the word that goes beyond the word. ~ Mos Def

The dimensions of video game characters, even when they're scanned from real people, are beefed up with exaggerated proportions in games like Def Jam: Fight for NY to give them more pop. ~ Cliff Bleszinski

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

So So Def has been one of the most successful and consistent labels in the game in the last 10 years. ~ Jermaine Dupri

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