Hip hop is at its essence a folk music, because it speaks the language that people are still speaking at ground zero, it speaks the language that people speak on the streets.

A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.

Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.

I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand.

Do the math: You never settle for less than the whole if you knew the half.

You gotta get back to your essence, Use your gifts and share your presence, Don't count your dollars 'til you count your blessings.

Life without knowledge is death in disguise.

The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with.

If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.

I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified.

You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.

And if you couldn't be loved, the next best thing was to be let alone.

Nobody sees me like you do, and without you, I’ll be invisible. I exist because you see me.

Doubt is the father of invention.

I know why the Jews and Muslims have nine hundred names for God; one small word is not enough for love.

I've had weird, weird acting jobs. Low-budget filmmaking where you find yourself in really bizarre places.

Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

There's no better way to mess up a good cowdog than to let him discover that goofing off beats the heck out of hard work.

Never underestimate the power of the mind, the importance of love and faith, and never stop dreaming.

Many who had been ahead of their time, had to wait for her in very uncomfortable quarters.

For me the top music though has to be Rock or Hip Hop and artists like Kanye West.