If you're true to the upliftment of people and the unity of people, raising the self-worth of people, then you live within your means. But the problem is that we're looking at the grass on the other side, saying, "That's greener. I want to be in the thug market, but I want to be a conscious rap artist." It doesn't work like that.
— KRS-One
Inspiring Conscious Rap quotations
I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about.
I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.
Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.
S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.
I believe a lot in gangsta rap, I see in it a lot of positive things as it is.
I believe it is only about doing politicization work. Revolutionary change will come from there, it won't come from conscious rap.
Truth had me up against the ropes And semi-conscious without no boxing skills.
The hip-hop that I really connected with was Public Enemy, KRS-One, Ice Cube, and N.W.A. That late '80s and early '90s era. The beginning of gangster rap and the beginning of politically conscious rap. I had a very immature, adolescent feeling of, "Wow, I can really connect with these people through the stories they're telling in this music."
As a conscious rap artist, you should not want to be in a gangster market.
You should be trying to establish your own market, create a place where you can be yourself and make some money and feed your family.
It's not that you don't make any money doing conscious rap music.
You make a lot of money doing this, but if you're greedy and you're not satisfied with $500,000 a year, and you want $2 million a year, then you will suffer as a conscious rap artist.
If you're a conscious rap artist and you're worried about Billboard charts, you're gonna have a problem.
I think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital "H," and as one word.
It's the name of the culture, and it's the name of the identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that's slavery, because you're talking about people's souls.
That's one of my struggles as a hip-hop artist.
If I feel like doing a super conscious song where I don't even rap.
We have to remember examples of many artists of conscious rap who have been coopted by the Department of State of the United States to be cultural ambassadors in different parts of the world, like Syria, like other parts of the Middle East, including conscious Islamic-American rappers that are representing an international political agenda for the United States through cultures more affable for people of color in other parts of the world.
We have to remember that the experience of gangsta rap as such in its foundation is an anti-systemic experience primarily. And it is an anti-systemic experience that is not in some cases politicized, but in general results in a much more transgressive, much more uncomfortable music for the structures of power, than conscious rap or political rap.
My sister Suga Tee is doing conscious rap.
She speaks to the youth. She has an album coming out soon. She got saved but she is still doing her thing. She still spits good game. She's talented. She sings. I don't know if a lot of people know this but Suga Tee has a beautiful voice. So ya'll look out for her album you dig? And look forward to a future Clique album.
When you look at a guy like a Jay-Z or look at a guy like a Nas, you don't necessarily qualify them as conscious rap purely, although they are extremely conscious of the social inequities that prevail.
Consciousness rap - a term that I don't think exactly exists but gets thrown around a lot - is not exactly popular.
Cloned chickens walking around without heads, The food is contaminated, the water got lead in it. Population control, make the babies sick, All these RFID chips, RU-486... This is a war against consciousness, Controlling your soul, sort of a psychological dictatorship. And we are on the front lines, Guilty as charged if intellect is a crime.