The First Step Is Defining Who You Are | Talib Kweli Greene on Impact Theory

If you were going to write the playbook for people coming up behind you about how to become yourself, I think is the most interesting way to ask it. So, not necessarily just how to become a legend in hip-hop, but um what path should people walk if they want to discover and define who they're going to become? Well, I think it's about your definition of success. [music] And in this capitalist system and in a system where whoever has the most toys wins, the our definition of success too often is whoever has the most toys wins. Whoever is most popping wins. Whoever is has the most likes on Instagram wins. And I think we have to change our definition of success. [music] For me, success is doing what you love for a living. It doesn't mean you're rich. It doesn't mean you're famous. It doesn't mean you'll never struggle again. It just means doing what you love for a living. And if that's the metric, then that's how you get successful. And the closer you get to doing what you love or being yourself for a living, the more successful you get. [music] Hey everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. Today's guest is one of the most legendary lyricists in the history of hip-hop. Jay-Z famously said, "If skills could be sold lyrically, this is the man he would be." One of the most socially aware and politically insightful rappers ever to hold a mic, he's remained a fresh and relevant voice for more than 20 years. He's collaborated with some of the biggest names in the game, including Kanye West, Mos Def, Pharrell Williams, Just Blaze, and many others. Internationally recognized for both his lyrical prowess and insane work ethic, he tours roughly 250 days a year and has put out not only an astonishing eight solo albums, but he's also created some of the most genre defining collaborations of his generation, including Black Star with Mos Def and Reflection Eternal with renowned rapper producer Hi-Tek. Not one to be beholden to anyone else, he also founded Javotti Media, a company built from the ground up to be a media powerhouse that fosters and promotes music, films, and books for not only himself, but other like-minded independent thinkers and doers. So, please help me in welcoming the man who is an integral part of the very fabric of hip-hop culture and artistry, the activist and intellectual monolith to Lib Kweli. [applause] Wow. Quite an intro. Hey. Well earned, I assure you. Man. Looking at where you sit in the pantheon of hip-hop is really extraordinary, and the fact that you've been doing it for so long with a voice that is not only unique, but incredibly truthful to who you are and and what feels like to me where you want the world to go, I think is really, really interesting. And so, Thank you. Yeah, for sure, man. The The thing that I am dying to ask is watching you create yourself and become somebody is is amazing. How do you think about that act of becoming the person you want to be, the act of self-creation? Um it seems like it feels to me in both your activism and your music that you're encouraging people to be a better version of themselves. And so, how do you think about that? Um I sent That's an interesting question. I am try to visualize um I don't know if that's visualization cuz visualization is seeing things that haven't happened yet, but I try to often put myself in the mind state of a younger me. And uh 20 years ago, I just wanted to rap. I just wanted other rappers to be like, he's nice. That's really all it's about. Like when I read Jay-Z's book, um he talks about how the raps led to everything. He's like, "You know, I'm seen as a billionaire, I'm seen as a businessman, and this and that, but for me it was all really about those bars." And And that's something that resonated with me. And then when I was hearing you run down the things I've done, I was like, "Who the [ __ ] is that guy?" [laughter] You know, like I was like that that the person you just described, I see myself sometimes as outside of that because I don't take stock of it. Um I'm just trying to rap good. And the things even my business moves have been made so that I could be a better rapper. I had no intentions of owning a label. It's not my focus at all. But that's just the smartest efficient way for me to be the best rapper I could be. It's really interesting to me that people like you, they meet that obstacle of the industry is not um it's not the way you want it to be for sure, and maybe isn't allowing you to move in the way that you want to move. So rather than back off, which I think is is the almost universal response to that obstacle, is to create something yourself. Where'd you get that tenacity and the guts to say, "Well, [ __ ] it, I'm going to do it my way"? Well, one from my parents. My parents are are hard workers. I come from a very hard working family. And you know, I'm not I'm not a conservative, I'm not a pull yourself up by the bootstraps guy. I understand how people are marginalized and why they're marginalized. I understand systems of oppression, but I also understand hard work. And I understand the rewards of hard work. And I understand that the reason why I value hard work is because I was blessed to be born into a household that values hard work. Um a lot of people just don't value hard work because they've never seen it. Um that's not a judgment, that's just an observation. Um and I just think, you know, it's the value of hard work, and it's also being ambitious, and just wanting this more than anybody. You know, I I want is I can't think of anything else that I I would rather be, you know? Um I ran into just recently I just ran into Diddy walking I was I was walking out of a party and he was walking into a party. And um I was just like, man, this guy is always in the place to be. Um he's never been the best rapper. He's never been a producer at all, but he can still do a tour. He can still go on tour and and and and perform bangers, perform hip-hop classics that are in in his catalog. Not because he's a great rapper, but because he wanted to be on a stage more than most people. So, you're right. Most people run the opposite direction. I try to run it towards the challenge. One thing that you've said that I think is really really interesting. I think you were speaking about Young Yachty. You said you have to separate the moves from the the performer. And I thought that was really interesting. What do you mean by that? Like how can somebody move in a way that you respect um even if you're not into the music? Um I don't know too much about Lil Yachty. Um you know, I like a couple of songs. I don't know how his how his business moves. I think what you're referring to I've I've said something similar similar to that uh about Soulja Boy. Um who, you know, this is a guy and someone could correct me if I'm wrong when they see this, but I you know, for I think he came into the game sort of um manipulating the system. There were music platforms where you you know, you go and listen to Justin Timberlake, you click Justin Timberlake, you click 50 Cent, you get Soulja Boy, you know? Soulja Boy learned at a very young age, 15 16 16 years old, how to go viral in a era where going viral became the premium thing. And so, even now, you got Soulja Boy out here talking about he doing interviews talking about I I had the greatest 2018. And everybody's like, no, you didn't. You know what I'm saying? But that doesn't matter. He's dealing with a post-truth. He's dealing with It's not whether or not what I'm saying is accurate is not important. Whether or not you click on 50 Cent, actually get 50 Cent is not important. I'm going viral regardless. You're going to be talking about me regardless. Um to the point where he got other viral YouTube people wanting to fight him. You know what I'm saying? Just so they could go viral, you know? Um that part of it, when this industry moved to a place where it's like, "Oh, no, it's all about going viral." I look at the people like the Soulja Boys and I learn from them. Whether I like their music or not. I mean, I look at artistry as a as a fraternity. I look at it as we're all brothers and sisters in this together. I know how hard it is to write one good lyric. So, if you can make one good song, I'm giving you all the profit in the world. You don't got to be the greatest. You don't have to be Rakim for me to give you respect. If you are creative, I like Soulja Boy hop up out the bed. I like that song, you know what I'm saying? I like the video when he jumps out the bed. It's funny. Um but yeah, I like the one he did with Drake, but I like the Jay-Z and J Electronica version better. We made it. Um yeah, his music's not for me and it's not supposed to be for me. His music's for for kids that are more his age. Um what he was able to do in the business, I looked at that as inspiration for me as a legacy artist to say, "Well, how do young people move in this space where lyrics don't matter and uh the label you're on don't matter. Um how do you get yourself heard?" Because the onus is on me as an artist. The onus is not on the consumer. I could sit there and complain about how the radio's whack and how no one buys real [ __ ] this and that. That's that's uh that's meaningless. That's pointless to do that. The onus is on me to figure out inside or outside of the industry, how do I get my music to the people who want to hear it? Yeah, I've heard you talk about that before and I find that pretty powerful. The notion of um and I'll use my own words, but the notion of deal with the world the way that it is, not the way you wish it were. And that doesn't mean that you don't try to move the world. That's interesting because one of my favorite quotes is Hakim out of That's you're exactly right. That's exactly what I just described. But, Hakim Adi booty is a poet and a writer and a publisher and and he's my OG. And essentially, he was he's he said that the measure of an artist is not someone who could just tell you how the world is right now, but could tell you what the world could could potentially be like. And I truly believe that. I truly believe that even your most emo depressed artist is an optimist at heart. You have to be to create art. Why would you want to put something beautiful in the world unless you had some sort of optimism? Um And so, what I'm What I think you said about me was describing me as a tactician or describing my business strategy. But, I have to separate that from how I make the art. You know, cuz if I make the art in that way, the art is going to suffer. Yeah, I looking at you and I think the reason I was drawn to that comment in you is for me watching you move and watching your music, there does seem to be an awareness of both. An awareness of how to move through the world, how to become independent, how to create your own label, how to be a touring artist, not worrying so much about going viral, and to make a pretty extraordinary living, to not have a boss. I mean, there's just a whole lot of incredible things that go along with that. And the first moment in your story where I saw, okay, this is a guy with self-awareness who is making moves. Meaning, there's cognition behind the choices that he's doing. So, ninth grade, you get bounced out of school for basically [ __ ] around as far as I can tell. You find hip hop, you go all in, you're not really worried about school. Your parents send you to a boarding school, and the I think the sort of typical narrative in that is we'll get bounced out of boarding school as well, but you don't. And what was your logic behind I'm now going to get on a path that's going to take me where I want to go? Um I don't think I was thinking that far ahead of it. I was You're correct to say I was really in becoming invested in hip hop in a very, very passionate, almost obsessive way. Before that, I was passionate, obsessed about baseball. And I was a star baseball player in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When I went to boarding school, it was a different level of competition, and I was a new kid there, so I didn't get on the I had to play JV for a second, which I didn't think I belonged on JV. And then when I got to varsity, I found, you know, I was just I wasn't treated seriously. That was a It was a basketball school. There was like seven black kids there. Six of them that were there to play basketball. I was I was not there to play basketball. So, they didn't really give a [ __ ] about the baseball team. And so, they didn't, you know, I just wasn't taken seriously as a baseball player, and I found myself getting bored and really just wanting to be in my room listening to De La Soul records. And like counting the seconds, like, when is baseball practice going to be over so I can go And that's when I realized that I really loved hip-hop more than baseball at that point in my life. Um when I got to Cheshire Academy, I excelled at it because it was very easy. It's 100 and 130 kids in the school, and academically, I was just I was I feel like I was smarter than the teachers. And my cultural experience gave me a leg up on a lot of the students. I I'm got I'm a kid from black kid from Brooklyn, New York. So, I'm like, I'm getting shot at and having rocks thrown at me from local skinheads, but I'm also like the most popular kid in the school, you know what I'm saying? Cuz I I know all the new fresh hip-hop. You know, so it it was like, um I was able I learned what I learned in that school was how to maneuver in polite, complicit white society. And what my blackness really represented, and I learned that if you make yourself indispensable to the situation, that the rules do not apply to you at all. Because it got to the point where I was captain of the debate club and the Blue Key Society, and I ran the yearbook, and I I directed them the plays. So, even when I [ __ ] up, instead of me getting punished the way some of the other white kids would, they would come and have a talk with me. Or they would have me see like a black guidance counselor. Or, you know, they were trying to do everything they could to keep me there. Because I'd made myself indispensable to the situation. I love that. So, how do you advise people to become indispensable? Like, how does one learn to do that? That's an interesting question I I never thought about how to make yourself indispensable. Um I guess in the hip-hop I've done it by being closest to myself. Naming myself Talib Kweli. Um my style is loquacious and it's wordy is because when I first started rapping, I was rapping I was uh had composition notebooks full of rhymes and I was trying to fit the rhymes to the beats. I learned later how to write to the beat, but my style developed from me trying to fit words where they didn't belong. And there was a lot of early criticism of my rap style. It was like, he's all over the place, he goes off beat, he's too wordy. But that's what made my style unique. Now no one could do it. Now 20 years later, that style is what helped me to do this. So, I I guess my answer would be get as close to yourself and your self-expression as you can. Offer the world something that is unique to you that no one else has to offer. I think that is arguably the world's best advice. What you're asking people to do though is be insanely brave and insightful. So, now as you begin to piece through how you got there, and admittedly like diving into your world, there's one thing about you that I find really interesting. There's just something burning inside of you and sometimes it expresses as this creative almost epiphany like for the listener. Like, hearing you go through this stuff like the manifesto and and hearing like how thoughtful you're thinking about things, it it gives epiphanies in other people. And what I want to know is how do you develop the bravery to be who you are, to really listen to yourself, but also at the same time it's clear you've educated the [ __ ] out of yourself and your family is so deeply invested into education. So, I I don't know how you feel about this, but I really feel like what makes us unique is not necessarily original thoughts. What makes us unique is our the way we synthesize information. So, if you and I read the same 10 books, we're going to walk away different people. We won't walk away the same person because we do something different with that information. Most people um they want their they're taking in external information so they can assimilate. Right. And so, what I want to know is how did you take it in and say I mean, was there no awareness that this is going to make my life harder by not assimilating? Um no, I mean, I think it's um first it starts in the home. You know, I come from parents who were active in sort of political and activist discussions, and that's why they named me Talib Kweli and they named my brother uh Jamal Kwame. Um that in itself is a challenge to society. Um when I was a younger young man, like a a kid, I recall teachers, grown ass teachers, giving up immediately on my name. Like, you know, you're you're you're in in fifth grade for the first time, and the teacher's reading the names, and and they get to my name, and my name is t a l i b. And those are letters in the English alphabet. If you put them together, they form things that you can make sounds with your mouth to say, right? But, people are used to only saying things they've seen before. So, they see a name, and what was looking like an exotic Muslim name to them at the time, and at you know, these are people who are paid to educate people, or paid to be authorities over children, and all common sense goes out the window, and it's how do you pronounce this? Tab- bilat? But, how do you It's like at least attempt. You know what I'm saying? Like, um but the idea that we have in uh black communities that if you name your child a black name or African name or Muslim name is going to make it harder for them to get a job. Um, this is something that's very prevalent. It's something that I remember my parents getting critiqued for and something I remember people saying to me like, oh, you have a hard name. And that's something that I became very very aware of very early in my life that oh, there's something different about how I've been named. And so it's made me move different. I can't be no crackhead named Talib Kweli. You know what I'm saying? Like the name is it means seeker of truth and knowledge. So just by how my parents named me set me on a path to wanting to live up to that name. So that's really powerful. So looking at the hip-hop game, looking at how much money there is to be made um in maybe not necessarily throwing your rock and hiding your hand, but certainly in drifting away from who you are naturally. I mean, Jay-Z himself said, "I dumbed down for my audience and doubled my dollars. They criticized me for it, but they all yell holler." It's like that that [ __ ] line resonated with me for sure. As an up-and-coming entrepreneur, I was like, "Fuck yeah, like at some point you have to take your audience into consideration." But then as you get into the space that I'm in now where you're sitting in front of a [ __ ] camera and you're talking about who you are for real, then it's like, "Oh, God, we're getting into waters where this [ __ ] is not going to be popular, but it's [ __ ] true." It's like when Russell Simmons says, "Every billionaire I know is depressed and miserable." You know, um Jay-Z's very interesting example because I'm looking at Jay-Z now and Jay-Z has grown out his dreads and he'd be wearing these fancy bandannas around his head with the dreads. And I look at these pictures of Jay-Z and I'm like, that's exactly how I wore my hair when I was in high school. Jay-Z looks like high school me. And it's interesting to me because I've always said as a fan of Jay-Z before he said my name on a record, I was always like yo, Jay-Z raps the way he raps because he's got to get the fourth quarter profits up for Rockefeller at the end of the at the end of the fiscal year. And the other artists ain't going to bring it all in, with all due respect to Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek and all these wonderful artists he had, they weren't doing the Jay-Z numbers. So, at the end of the day, Jay-Z kind of for years had to had to drop a record just to keep the label popping. And I was like, man, what is Jay-Z going to rap about when he doesn't have to have the label popping? And the answer is he's going to rap about Talib Kweli. And the answer is he's going to rap about his baby blue. And the answer is he's going to rap about black economics. He's going to rap about how much he's in love with Beyoncé. He's going to rap about he's going to do documentaries about you know, people who were who died in Rikers Island. He's going to, you know, he's going to buy Nipsey Hussle albums. That's that's who Jay-Z has grown into being. Um and it's been interesting for me to watch. Jay-Z though is the exception to the rule, not the rule. The rule is you have to make a choice. The rule is you either be a hustler or you be an artist. The rule is you be a big businessman or artist. Jay-Z is the rare exception that his talents as an artist are equal to his talents as a businessman. I am not that. You know what I'm saying? I may be maybe and it's subjective, but I may be more of a talented artist than Jay-Z, maybe. I'm damn sure not more of a talented businessman than him. But he like his he's man, he's so good as a rapper. Like I don't have I like he's he's Jay-Hova. He's the god MC after Rakim. You know, he's like Jay-Z is is is the my top five is a revolving door, but Jay-Z always kind of holds a slot in my top five. Um and as a businessman it's like equal. Um but yeah, I think that's why Jay-Z is such the perfect example for these conversations around business and hip hop. All right, you ready for a thought exercise? Sure, this will be interesting. Um let's say that you're going to live forever. You still have to make money though, but you are going to live forever. No two ways about it. Um how would that change your life? Like what would you focus on? Would you reinvent yourself as a hip hop artist and take over that game, would it be more activism like you you now don't have to worry about ever running out of time. Well, time is our most precious commodity, right? Um I think I would walk the earth like kung fu. That is a very unexpected answer. I'm super [ __ ] [laughter] intrigued. Why? It seems to me that connecting with other other human beings is is true happiness. Um Assata Shakur talks about in her book the hardest thing about solitary confinement, which she was in for 7 years or so, is not having human touch and how like the first time she touched someone out of coming out of solitary confinement, how that feeling was so sort of too ecstatic uh uh you know to sort of describe is like our connection is like we need each other. We need comradery. We need communion. We need to be around and engage with other human beings, or else we have no purpose in living. And um so if I had all the time in the world, man, I feel like I would walk around and get to know communities. I've been blessed to travel the world. I've been to you know, dozens of countries. Um most of them I haven't had a chance to see because I'm shuttled into a venue where I'm being paid to be in front of people who love to see me. And that experience is all about me. And then I'm shuttled to the next city to have that same experience. So it's not I'm not seeing these places. Um the older I get, like I I tour more than any rapper, but what what's starting to happen now as a touring rapper in my 40s is is when I book gigs, I'll be booking like two three days in a city. Like I'm trying to book like you know, if I now like I I book a gig and immediately I'm looking at who got the hot tub, who got the where's the the resort in the area? Like I'm looking at it as a as an excuse to stay at a resort somewhere. Mhm. that's that's what I do when I book gigs now, because what you know, we're staying at a resort is not quite connecting with the people. That's more self-care. Um, but even though I'm staying at the resort, it gives me a chance to be in the city for a few days, and I can go and deal with the local people, and go and see what the food is like and what the culture is like, and and and get get that in my life. And that's that's sort of where I'm moving to as I become older. That's so [ __ ] interesting. So, the notion of human touch is something that I think is really fascinating and way under appreciated for people. Um, I heard somebody just yesterday, damn it, I'm forgetting who said it, uh but they said, "You're so connected, you're disconnected." Mhm. And I thought, yeah, like I get that. Like when the most torturous part about being in solitary confinement is the lack of human touch, which you can very easily take for granted, um it's interesting that you put your finger on that as something that you would pursue in terms of being in the community. And then saying I want to go around touching strangers. Yeah, yeah, I know. I want to make sure we're be in touch, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then the other part sounds like if I had to put it into just a word, experiences. Mhm. Um, how do experiences shape you? Well, memories, right? We're we're all you know, the collection of our memories. We're That's That's That's who we are. Um, and the interesting thing about memory is that memory is is has a has an inherent bias. You got to remember things not how they were, you're going to remember things sort of your perspective, and your perspective is not always the truth. You know, it could be maybe your truth, but you know, um so we build who we are based on these memories. People identify by the music they listen to when they were in high school or college, because that's when they were developing who they were. So, in high school and college I was, you know, I was a Nas guy. I used to ride the train in high school, and I would see somebody with like Nikes and baggy jeans on, and like a Tommy Hilfiger sweater, and immediately I'm making a spiritual connection with that person, cuz I'm like, I'm that guy. I'm I'm like that guy. That guy probably likes the Fu-Schnickens. And I like the Fu-Schnickens, and that's who I am. That's That's who I am. And that becomes your identity, and what happens is you remember that time as when you as when you were developing into who you were. So, you become an adult, and you get to my age, and you'll be like, "Man, nothing was better than '90s. Nothing was better than Tropical Quest and and the music. And man, the way these kids are dressing with these tight jeans. And man, nothing was better than how we dressed." And that stuff becomes, you know, rose. It be It looks rose through your rose-colored glasses. And you you start to forget that Mobb Deep's music was hyperviolent. And Biggie was superviolent and supermisogynistic. Because in your rose-colored nostalgia glasses, that's real. That's old-school hip-hop, and they talked about positive stuff. Which is crazy. It really is crazy how much we're a product of our time as much as our environment. And like you said, there's there's something going on in the brain. When you were talking about memories, I I think that that's um something that is ill-understood with people. And when you really start looking at the research and seeing how memories are are stored, but when you access them, you pull them out into working memory, they're manipulated while they're there. The things that your current mood or whatever as you're looking at that memory then change it. And so, when you put away the memory, it's it's fundamentally altered. thing. Yeah, exactly. Well said. And so, as you were talking about that, I thought, "Ooh, I wonder what word in your own life you would find um more interesting, maybe the right way to say it, which one you move towards more, evolution or reinvention? Like, which one of those when you think about yourself, which one do you either aspire to or naturally move towards?" I like both, but I I would move towards reinvention only because of sort of the cultural uh sort of ramifications of evolution. Uh you know, race is a social construct, and the race dropped into the conversation, you know, evolution and that type of science has been used to justify racist biases. So, even though I like to think that I evolve and I think people do evolve, I if you had to ask me to choose between I would choose reinvent. So, as you think about that and going back to your now living forever, how would you conceptualize that reinvention? Are you as you travel the world and you're encountering all these people and forming new memories and bonds and and being influenced by the lives that touch you as well as the lives that you touch, um is there directionality to that? Like is there is there like a if I think about a a Buddhist or somebody who's really committed to meditating, they're they're really trying to get beyond the trappings of I I I, right? And that seems to be and I know that I'm over simplifying, but that seems to be sort of the end of a lot of Western traditions is once you realize the self is an illusion, then you step into something new. And that's that's an interesting sort of end goal. Is there something like that that you have in mind whether as you talked earlier about getting power is it power to elevate to a quality? Like what's that sort of I know that calling it an end state will maybe change how you think about it, but is there sort of a higher calling to step into? I mean, I think that that's it. I've had I've had situations in my life recently where I've had to question myself and and and arguments and debates I'm having with people and I'm like, am I making this about myself or am I making it about the work and the point I'm trying to make? And how much of my how much of how much of my ego should I let go and how much of my time, which you were talking about earlier, do I reclaim? Um because as someone who's who's achieved what I've achieved, sometimes when people argue with me or when I debate people, uh and I'm not talking about people like you who I have there's a mutual respect going back and forth, but I'm talking about people who just don't respect me. Um You know, they'd be like, you know, people would be like, "Well, humble yourself." And you know, and it's like, you're not owed my humility. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not me because you are uncomfortable with how mediocre you've been. You know, and I have to own that. I I you know, there's I have to own who I am. But, how do I find the humility and and give it up to if if God is your thing or if just the universe is your thing, whatever it is, give it up to sort of the higher spiritual purpose, um but still reclaim my time and still stand on my my square. Um that's been the conflict of where I'm going to go because I'm moving out the space of I can't everything that I did that I because I was young, I can I I can no longer be like, "I'm just a young man." You know, I'm I'm not a young man. I'm youngish, I would like to think, you know, but I'm I'm now at the age where I have to be the leader that I'm looking for. You know, when at family events, when you're at this age, you look around and the older people are passing away. You look around like, "Oh, no, I got to plan a family reunion now." And so, um you know, I just I think that that's the um you know, when when you go back to where we you know, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, like the knowledge is I had when I was working in the bookstore. I had access to the knowledge. I'm looking around. I'm seeing all the books. I'm taking in all the knowledge. And knowledge is making me say things like, you know, uh "Fuck Bowen." And knowledge is making me say things like, um you know, whatever, like things that I've that I've evolved on. But, then you have the wisdom that comes next and you would start to apply the knowledge properly. And the wisdom is when you start seeing me changing my career. It's like, I have this knowledge about how the music business is, but then I have a wisdom, um to know to have to I have to start my own label. And then, the things I've learned from that, now I'm starting to approach the understanding. And the I guess the understanding is moving away from yourself. What is it that I that I have to contribute to the society? Um Who is it that I'm looking at? Who's before me? Like the Harry Belafonte's. Who's after me? Like the Nipsey Hussles. You know, where do where am I in that? And that's where it really where I'm looking at. Yeah, that's the the evolution of the [snorts] culture, the evolution of the individual. That stuff to me is is really really interesting and I think you've been a powerful voice for the individual needing to take responsibility for their own evolution. You're certainly a very active voice in shaping the culture both as a talent and as a I don't know, sort of the wise guidance, you know, as you talk about wandering the earth like Cain. It's you know, Cain was both the student and the teacher. And I think that that's something that's super super interesting. What is something that you hope people take away from the way that you move through the world? Whether that's you down in Ferguson and saying I'm not just going to [ __ ] tweet about it, I'm going to roll up, I'm going to be here. I'm going to be a voice that challenges. I'm going to be a voice that reflects truth. Like what do you hope people learn from all of that and and will hopefully do as that up-and-coming generation? Well, I think it's what you said before about getting to the point where it's about the work and it's not about you. Activism is about for me personally, food, clothes, and shelter. On the ground, what do the people need? Because we're not going to solve racism with heavy academic conversations. We're not going to solve the world's problems with these nice lights and this camera and this wonderful wonderful interview. You know, we're blessed and privileged to even be here. Um but we have to we have to use these platforms to to sort of shine the light on the people who do the sort of food, clothes, and shelter work. And if I could be that cuz I I don't I don't come from poverty. I grew up in Brooklyn. I didn't grow up rich, but I didn't grow up I never had to use food stamps. I didn't you know, I wasn't I didn't come from that. I come from a very sort of privileged academic background. Well, if that's where I come from, how do I use that platform to uplift the people who didn't have uh the opportunities that I was presented and provided with. And I think that's what I what I've tried to do. I think that's why I gravitated toward toward hip-hop. I realized that my writing skill and my access to knowledge was because of the parents that I was blessed to be born to. Early in my life, I saw that hip-hop was poetry. And I was like, this is how I can connect to the culture cuz I was like a black nerd. I I didn't I didn't have a lot of black friends when I was a little kid not until I started rapping in junior high school. That was like my introduction to black culture. All my friends was was was I was living in Park Slope with a lot of Dominican and Puerto Rican kids and a bunch of white kids. And um sort of like how Donald uh Donald Glover was on Community, it was like, [ __ ] this noise. I'm going to write the blackest show I could write cuz black people don't know who I am. And then I'm going to make the blackest song I could make and I'm going to tell them to stay woke because I want a black audience. That's how I was in in junior high school. Yeah, it's interesting how you had a lot of self-awareness at that time to understand hip-hop to dive so deeply into that world to let it really begin to influence you. Then you go off track, then you get back on track and and do it in a much more conscious way. Um that is really interesting. What are some lessons that like they say a fool never learns, a smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. What are some of the missteps that you feel you went down that if people could learn from, they could avoid those mistakes? Um I feel like at the height of my career, I should have been braver and gone independent sooner. Okay. You know, I come from sort of um an indie community. Um LP from Company Flow and now Run the Jewels um was an early influence on me as an artist and he continues to be. He's somebody who has always found a way from Official Recordings to Death Grips to Run the Jewels, to carve out a space for him to do what he wants to do professionally and never ever bow to the system. And this is a guy that I have a huge amount of respect for. Um, but even though I knew people like that, I believed the hype or I didn't necessarily believe the hype. I wanted to believe the hype. Because, you know, like you said, I didn't start out as want to be a conscious artist. I want I started out want to be LL Cool J, you know, or I wanted to be just a rapper. Like I wasn't like I'm you know, I want to be the best rapper. Um, I didn't want to be the best conscious rapper. Um, I wanted to have a song on the radio and have a hit. That's what I wanted when I was a kid. Um, at the height of that, if I had made some independent moves at that height, I would have been looked at the people, my contemporaries like LP or Tech N9ne or certain other people. Um, you know, that would be a regret. I I This is a hard question because I I try not to have any regrets. I I I don't live by that. Do you have a philosophical stance about not regretting things because it made you who you are? I kind of do. But I I guess regret is not the word. Um, yeah, that's even a hard question to ask because I wish I regret not This is who who I am. But we were talking about ifs earlier. You talked about if you live forever. So, in this hypothetical world, we have the luxury and the privilege to discuss things hypothetically. In this hypothetical world, if I could go back, it's not a regret, but if I could go back, I would go independent quicker. Okay. Yeah. If you were going to write down a playbook, and I know you are working on a book, but it it more memoir? Yes, memoir. Okay. So, if you were going to write the playbook for people coming up behind you about how to become yourself, I think is the most interesting way to ask it. So, not necessarily just how to become a legend in hip-hop, but um, what path should people walk if they want to discover and define who they're going to become? Well, I think it's about your definition of success. And in this capitalist system and in a system where whoever has the most toys wins, the our definition of success too often is whoever has the most toys wins. Whoever is the most popping wins. Whoever is has the most likes on Instagram wins. And I think we have to change our definition of success. For me, success is doing what you love for a living. It doesn't mean you're rich. Doesn't mean you're famous. It doesn't mean you'll never struggle again. It just means doing what you love for a living. And if that's the metric, then that's how you get successful. And the closer you get to doing what you love or being yourself for a living, the more successful you get. They wrote a book about it a few years ago called The Secret. And they sold it and they sold millions and millions of copies of this book. And if you read the book, it was basically like do what you love for a living. And I'm like, that shouldn't be a secret. Yeah, it shouldn't be a secret. So, why do you think it is? Why do you think that so few people are able to do that? Well, because the game is to be sold, not to be told. And there's money to be made in keeping information away from people. That's interesting. So, how do people growing up in that system, how do they buck out of it? Is it are there certain Google searches they should be doing, going to a website? You have a lot of books on your website. I'm guessing those are highly curated. Like is it is it stuff like that? Finding somebody like you who's a curator of not only culture, but wisdom, knowledge, perspective, finding somebody like that, latching on, and sort of going through the reps? Yeah, I think it's about that. It's really about your values, though. I think a lot of people, especially in the social media era, don't really understand what it is they're about. People respond emotionally to things that make them feel good. Um and so, I don't think people are vetting the information that they're getting in online spaces. And and I I speak specifically to online spaces because this is where we're spending the vast majority of our time. If we're not on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, we are ordering Ubers, or ordering Grubhub, or you know, whatever what have you. We're buying things on Kayak and Airbnb, and we're all we're ordering drones from Amazon to bring us things. Like, we're online. I don't know what the percentage is, but I'd be interested to know what percentage of time people in a developed nation spend on internet. I don't consider myself an internet person. I spend an inordinate amount of time online, me personally. And I'm someone who I have made moves in the real world. I can't even imagine people who just sit behind a keyboard and nest all their you know, that's that's the they're like Ready Player One. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, I feel like we're we're closer to that than than we even could imagine. So, speaking to your um the way that you move on Twitter. So, you People have told you a thousand times, don't debate the trolls, but um you have a pretty interesting stance on that. Why do you push back so hard on trolls? Um the idea that a troll is not racist or not as dangerous because they're designated as troll is foolish and very dangerous. And since when are trolls virtuous? Like, since when is like I mean, from what everything I know about trolls, I mean, I read a little token. You know what I'm saying? Like uh you know, I trolls seem like things that you shouldn't want to be. So, you you you say, "Oh, that's not a racist. That's just a troll." How's that better? Is it what what kind of society are we trying to be a part of if we're saying that it's okay for you to intentionally want to be a deceitful person in order to try to make people feel bad? Because that's essentially what a troll on the internet is doing, right? How are we justifying this? How are we Oh, because they play video games? Like, I don't understand like how is that now a thing that we now have to accept as if they're some sort of marginalized group. Um but to your point, um I'm not speaking to them. I'm speaking through them. I come from teachers, and these people who come at me become my lesson plan. I use them to expose the mentality. I use them to speak my truth and direct traffic to my website. Here's my show. If you have something to say, come to my show. Direct traffic to my bookstore. Here's Here's a book that I'm selling that's about this situation. Um but ultimately to push back not on an individual troll, but to push back on their messaging. Um Nelson Mandela said, "Fools multiply when wise men uh ignore." And I live by that. Um you know, or the old adage that, you know, a lie can run around the world three times before the truth wakes up to put on his tie shoes. Um these are not uh phrases that come out of nowhere. So, when someone says that the guy who murdered five police officers in Dallas is a member of Black Lives Matter and that proves that Black Lives Matter is a violent organization. And I see that comment on my feed, and I see it because they'll say it at me. I'm not out here looking for people. They'll be like, "@TalibKweli Black Lives Matter is a violent organization cuz and if I see that and I ignore it on some, that's just a racist troll. I'll just ignore him and racism will go away because if you ignore cancer, it's going to go away clearly. If I do that, I am failing humanity. If I know better and I don't do better, I am a failure to humanity. I am not doing what I was raised to do. I am not doing my duty as a man, as a father, as a citizen, nothing. I'm just [ __ ] failing. And I can't live by that. I don't expect everybody to be me. I know that that comes from me my unique perspective. Some people see a comment like that and it's stressful. And it triggers them. They be like, I don't even want to involve myself in that toxic energy cuz then I'm going to be arguing with the person and it's going to bring my life I'm going to waste time that I could have been doing something more productive and it's going to bring my energy down and now there's an energy vulture and now I've given that person my platform. I'm not I have respect for that. I have respect for that. But you better be doing activist work. You better be doing something else if you're not going to be on Twitter. I have respect for it. What I don't respect is you telling me while you don't do [ __ ] that I shouldn't be doing [ __ ] I don't respect people who be like, Kwame, you know what you need to do? Stay black and die. That's it. I don't need to do [ __ ] you say. You know what I'm saying? Like, Kwame, you know what you should Oh, I should? Okay. Well, maybe you're an activist that's done activist work that I need to be paying attention to or respecting because you're giving me unsolicited advice. So, share your activism work with me. And when I do that, people like, you know what? You're You just say everyone's a Nazi and then it did Okay, now your whole facade is gone because I asked you a simple All I asked you was to show me the work you do so I can see how I could be working better. But that's not what you came here to do. You came here to tell me to shut the [ __ ] up. That's really the end goal of what you came to do. And so we're we're socialized as a as as a as a society to place politeness over justice. To place being polite and being silent over being correct. How many videos have you seen of some crazy white racist person in Walmart yelling racist [ __ ] at someone and there's someone around there taping and everyone else is like, "Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh." No, everybody in that [ __ ] situation that that devil should be shamed. After they walk out of there. You know what I'm saying? Like, how how we have so many examples of Our society is so polite. I don't value politeness like that because that whole polite etiquette [ __ ] that come from some colonial [ __ ] that has nothing to do with community. And like, [ __ ] that respectability polite [ __ ] Like, you and me I'm not being polite to you. I'm being respectful to you. You know what I'm saying? That's a difference. You've You've earned my respect. You deserve my respect. On as a basic human being, you deserve my respect. You know, until you give me a reason to be like, I'll [ __ ] with you. But just on a basic level, you know, but it's not about politeness because that's just a some hierarchy [ __ ] That's some use this spoon and this fork type [ __ ] It's very clear that you have really strong values, which I think is really incredible. You started by saying that a lot of people don't know their values, which is utterly fascinating to me. And then you also said that people with knowledge have an obligation to share that knowledge with people who don't have it. So, as somebody who has this really amazingly clear value system, how can people build that value system? Because I really really really believe if people took control of their values, created them intentionally, understood that they are something that you create, whether by accident, whether because you grew up in a shitty family with shitty values, or a city, whatever, but ultimately now you're grown ass person, it's time for you to assess your values, make them intentional. Like, how do people go about that process? And quite frankly, what values do you think are universal? Well, I think that's what it is. What are the universal values? What are What are the basic values? What's What's What's I think basic human rights is a good jumping off point. You know, just knowing Just everyone deserves life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Everyone deserves basic amount of respect and I don't know the exact UN human basic human right, but just basic human rights, just tolerance of other human beings. Um compassionate compassion is very important to me. Um What's What is your end goal? What is your value? Is it a religious thing? Are you trying to be the best Christian? You trying to be the best Muslim? Are you trying to be the best Jewish person? Are you trying to be the best conservative, liberal? You trying to be the best Democrat, Republican? What is it that you're you're to be the best at? And for me, I'm trying to be as compassionate as humanly possible. I respect that. Tell people where they can find out more about you, which there are a lot of places. Give them your favorites. Oh man, I'm just really out here though. Um now I'm just on social medium. I'm easy to find as my name is my name on there. And um I tour a lot and I'm I'm out I'm just out here. Just walking these streets like Caine in Kung Fu. [laughter] Indeed you are. All right, if you were going to focus all of your time and attention on having tremendous impact in the world, what impact would you want to have? Um I want people to just be as close to their to their truth as possible. I want people to be Art to me is the is true honesty. And I think trying to get towards honesty is where I want people to be. Um I'm able to like hip-hop that's not conscious when I see the honesty in it. When I see the honesty in Gucci Mane. When I see the honesty in Eminem, which are you know two very opposite sort of hip-hop artists. Neither one of them make music like I make and I don't make music like either one of them. I've made songs with Gucci, I've never made songs with Eminem. Um but to me it's really about that honest expression and um that's really what my focus has been for for for what I've tried to impart in my music. I love that. Talib, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. That was incredible. Guys, do yourself a favor, listen to his music first and foremost. You want to talk about somebody who really knows how to express themselves, it is absolutely extraordinary and then watch how he moves through this world, especially as he goes into his phase as Cain walking the earth learning and educating. It will be amazing. Guys, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. To live [ __ ] quality. That was amazing, dude. And I hate [music] to be perfect. We're supposed to embrace all our imperfection. And I think if we find and can imagine the bright side in anything, that will become a reality. But you can't think anything's [music] going to be given to you other than opportunity. And the only way to show appreciation for opportunity is to react.