Top 35 Lupe Fiasco Quotes

I don’t have to work on it. I’m naturally a writer. The rapping and writing, they can go hand-in-hand – but rapping is an art that you have to practice and master, so I worked at it for a long time.

This nation was founded by rebels and revolutionaries, and its flags were carried across the battlefields by people who were very, very against the status quo and who questioned and criticized.

With Australian audiences, there’s a certain level of education – as far as how much access and exposure they have to music from various genres. So when you do ‘Big Day Out’ and there are all these different musical acts, you see the same people in your crowd that were there for a completely different artist.

I have so many miles and I’ve been flying for so long that every time I fly, it’s first class. It’s one of those things that, if I needed to jump on a plane, and fly to Spain tomorrow, I know I could get it done. Just like that.

What’s the biggest commercial for aggression, sexuality and materialism? What gets pumped into these kids’ heads? Taking someone else’s girl, which is so laissez-faire in hip-hop, will get you killed in the streets, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue when you hear it on the radio.

That should be the measure of success for everyone. It’s not money, it’s not fame, it’s not celebrity; my index of success is happiness.

I always saw two sides of life. I saw the dudes who would be the gangsta, big-time guys on the block, but would also be dedicated fathers. It was kind of weird to see that dual story that everybody has.

Da Pak was a group out of Chicago. It was a put-together group. We actually met for the first time at this showcase. They were like ‘Yo, you should do a song together.’ So we did. It just so happened that the name of the song was ‘Wolf Pak.’ They said, ‘Y’all should be a group called Da Pak, and here’s a record deal.’

The economical policies that are instigated really makes you think that the American government is a bunch of evil bastards. So just because you’re black, you’re still representing that government, and when Obama came into office he enacted the same policies that we would critique other presidents for.

I can’t play any instrument for the life of me, but I know what I want to hear.

I do this for the sake of myself. It’s a selfish process. I don’t really have any expectations from anyone for your comments or your reviews or your previews.

It definitely wasn’t like, ‘Hey, I’m going to steal that, and nobody’s going to know.’ The original ‘T.R.O.Y.’ came out in 1992, and it was like a 20th anniversary kind of thing. All of those intentions were there for it to be resurrecting a classic for a new generation. I tried to honor it.

The party lines don’t change, that’s what makes them a party and you’d be a fool to think that just because there’s a black man in there it’s not gonna change the real foundation of the system. Especially when you look at his largest contributor to his campaign, AIG, one of the culprits in the economic meltdown itself.

You expect certain things. You build up in your mind how it’s supposed to go down. When you get a record deal, you think you’re supposed to get X, Y, and Z. It doesn’t happen like that. You’re like ‘Oh, this isn’t as exciting as I thought it was going to be.’

I have an understanding of Queen and the way Freddie Mercury did his harmonies. I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

I think you have to ask yourself does voting work on the level that you are trying to effectuate change; that is the conversation you must have.

Once you’ve been on tour six, seven years, you get an idea of what works and what doesn’t work universally. There will be some crowds that we just can’t play a song, but we’ve got 90% of a show that we know is going to be a hit with the Lupe Fiasco fan. I think the catering has already been done.

I don’t mind payin’ for the police and for streets and sanitation, or road work, bridges, trains, food subsidies and welfare. But I don’t wanna pay for bombs to fight proxy wars in the middle of nowhere against enemies in the night.

It was, ‘If you don’t do ‘The Show Goes On,’ your album’s not coming out.’ I had nothing to do with that record – nothing. I was literally told how I should rap on it. But I’m a bastard, ‘cos I’ll turn around and put it back in your face.

I love Obama, and I love the fact that it’s a black president of the United States of America, but he’s not the first black president. Robert Mugabe is a black president, too, so let’s not get to talking about precedents being set.

Some people are the greatest people on Earth with good hearts and will get in the studio and make the most negative music in the world for the sake of success. That’s what the music business does to you. That’s what capitalism does to you.

The only person who really impressed me with making new music is Cudi. Everyone else seems to be jumping on the same music, the producer-made stuff, but the one person that’s made new music to me is Cudi.

This game wears on you. It tears you down. It’s perpetual motion for some people who’ve achieved a level of independence, like Madonna and Jay-Z – they don’t need to do music anymore. But there’s people who need it. And in that need, that’s when it’s tough and it tears you to pieces.

There’s already been black presidents who’ve been corrupt, so it doesn’t strike me that having a black man in office means he’s going to be the Messiah.

I think there’s a lot of the hip-hop crowd behind Barack Obama because he’s a black man. Honestly, I’m rooting for Hillary because race is only going to go so far. All the presidents are men at the end of the day.

Chief Keef scares me. Not him specifically, but just the culture that he represents.

It’s a massive undertaking putting an album together… It’s not light weight at all.

Sometimes I wish I never found the Internet. Sometimes I regret getting a laptop and Wi-Fi for logging into the Internet because it is such a distraction. If you have any addictive personality, the Internet will magnify it.

I pay my taxes, but I’ve never voted and I never will vote as long as the system works the way it does. Even when Obama was running, I wanted to see a woman run! I’d rather see a woman in the White House as opposed to Obama.

People say, ‘If you don’t vote, then you don’t have a right to say anything. But nine times outta 10, I pay more taxes than they do – so even if I don’t vote, I still have the right to speak out.

We weren’t raised Muslim – we were born Muslim. I didn’t go to a Muslim school, but it was just the theme song. It was ambient.

I trust people to be human. Sometimes you do things that make amazing amounts of sense; sometimes you do things that don’t make any sense whatsoever.

For me, I never wore my religion on my sleeve, you know what I’m saying? I never put myself out there as Lupe Fiasco, he’s Muslim, he’s from Chicago, he likes to ride a skateboard.

All the big revolutions, whether it’s the Industrial Revolution, the Arab Spring, those changes happened by economic and social shifts brought about by the people’s voices, and those things weren’t voted for. Most of our changes today are brought about through technology, not by voting.

I think it is important that you have people from all different vanguards, from all different walks of society and different viewpoints to be focused on the struggle for equality and democracy. We need as many champions for the cause and as many events as possible to help keep this in focus.