Saul Williams Quotes

White people couldn't do black music back in the day because they weren't funky or bad enough. They weren't from the ghettoes, but hip-hop and R&B changed all of that because white kids want to be down with it. They wanted to learn it so they studied the culture. It's kind of a cool thing because we shouldn't be so separate.

By some estimates, 80% of rap music is bought by white youth. And this makes for another irony. The blooming of white alienation has brought us the first generation of black entrepreneurs with wide-open access to the American mainstream.

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility.'

When I say 'hip-hop is dead,' basically, America is dead. There is no political voice. Music is dead.

I think that, by and large, the predominant voice we hear in rock music is a white male voice.

I feel like everything I do in the hip-hop world has an influence. People don't really notice what I did until somebody else does it. As far as hip-hop goes, I want to continue to make good music, and good art. I don't really follow the state of hip-hop.

I'm not Tupac or this prophetic dude or anything like that. I just want to make music and have fun.

When I first got to Los Angeles, hip-hop music was a scary thing not only to white America but to middle-class black America.

I got a liberal education. A white guy, rapping as Bugs Bunny, on a quintuple-platinum album.

I'm a fan of hip hop music, so I always used a hip hop element in my music anyway.

This is the industry that wants [music], the rap industry.

Hip-hop ain't died because of the South, that's retarded.

I consider 'Dope' a part of the new mainstream.

I have a hip-hop podcast and get to meet all these rappers I love, so I feel very lucky.

We gotta let hip-hop grow. We gotta let it go through its different phases throughout the different places that's accepting it.

World music can be sometimes like the lumber room in which all the non-English singers are dumped. When you are singing in Arabic, no matter what your style of music or artistic proposition is, you are faced with some of that reality.

Azealia Banks - love what she's doing.

I think a lot of rappers limit themselves by doing the gangster movies and that's stereotypical for a rapper.

My biggest moments have been in Philly - I met Jay-Z and Beyonce in Philly, I did the Powerhouse in Philly.

They didn't know what to do with rap music. You walk into Epic, and they're wearing straight-leg khakis with creases, Prada shoes with tassels. They couldn't comprehend where I was coming from.

Bands speak for us in this inevitable way that you can't get anywhere else because it is this perfect balance of artistic expression and popular culture.

I don't know that there is a, quote, 'hip-hop lifestyle.' I think the music responds to complex social issues and injustices; I think it also raises complex social questions.

I'm just changing the game because I know what the fans want and the people want 'cause I'm a fan of hip-hop.

I feel like hip-hop is the new pop because it has a lot of influence because of our culture.

Historically, hip-hop is about a generation of artists rapping about the realities they see in their neighborhoods or the 'truths' they hear growing up in their homes.