Top 66 Black Thought Quotes

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You can always hear me breathing during my verses, but that breathing becomes part of the music.

What we do every day onstage, there’s lights, there’s lots of other musicians, there’s an audience, there’s a microphone and mic stands – layers of the onion we have to kind of hide behind.

The most profound memory I have from my childhood is burning down my house at 6 years old.

I was raised as a Muslim.

I got a family to take care of and kids to feed. That’s my motivation, this is my job.

There probably won’t be an animated The Roots or Black Thought as there was, say, an animated Michael Jackson when ‘The Jackson 5’ cartoon show was on when we were kids.

A lot of our earlier material was freestyle tunes.

Although there are people who regard ‘Do You Want More?!!!??!’ as our first major release, I think ‘Things Fall Apart’ was the real arrival of The Roots, so to speak.

I feel like I’ve been around for such a long time, as a writer and as an artist, that I need to sort of speak to the way that my perception of the world has sort of changed.

I don’t sit down and write a song, and then slam down the phone like, ‘We got another one!’ and pop some champagne. It’s like if someone’s writing a novel: You write a series of drafts.

At this point, in 2008, if you put out a book, a movie, or write a verse, paint a painting, it should have some sort of social value.

For me, the arts has always been sort of my saving grace.

I love Trader Joe’s.

It’s weird what can trigger the beginning of a song or some bars. It can be a banging slice of apple pie or it can be smelling a certain perfume or something.

I grew up in the neighborhood where ‘Rocky’ came from.

I’ve never studied music.

My children have a world of opportunities that were not available to me. My kids have no idea about going without – there’s no desire or need they have that hasn’t been fulfilled, which is a blessing.

Nah, I don’t feel overlooked, underappreciated, or none of that because it’s a short list of artists, past and present, that I kind of have respect for. And in all of those situations, the admiration and respect is mutual.

I definitely enjoy performing on stage with The Roots.

I’m down to work with anyone as long as it’s an organic collaboration.

I give back because that is what I was taught and it is what I believe.

The Roots want to dip our toes into everything in the arts.

What we were doing was alien in ’92. We were less than immediately accepted by our fans and peers.

I don’t know that Dilla was the father of neo-soul as much as he was highly influential in that time when he was doing what he was doing at his best… Dilla’s influence transcended genre and it transcended region.

The Evolution of Greatness’ was an amazing experience, and it’s something that we hope to have been a steppingstone for us to come back and not only do more NBA All-Star performances, but do halftime performances at events like the Super Bowl.

To me I think leadership is activism. It’s giving back to your community, it’s investing in oneself, and you know women and children.

When people see that we’re signed to Def Jam, the perception has changed.

We usually overrecord. Then we boil it down to the cream of the cream.

The Roots brand is like the Lipton of hip-hop, so to speak.

I’ll read a book. I’ll watch a documentary or a film or whatever. I’ll go to an art exhibit and just try and open myself to influence.

Lots of people are saying that I shut down mumble rap in one 10-minute setting. But that wasn’t my intention, because mumble rap – if we go back – that’s something I invented.

I miss being out on the road.

The Tonight Show’ afforded us the opportunity to work with The Muppets and other ‘Sesame Street’ characters, and we always had the desire to do something that spoke to young people.

I strive for improvement. want to be a master of my craft.

I feel like Black Thought is a name that has so much meaning and depth, not only to me but to my fans, that it’s something that I wanted to hold onto a little bit tighter.

By the time I was, you know, 16 years old, I had done a lot of growing up.

I think poor folks are the only people who cannot afford – financially and otherwise – to be sick.

To be in a band with the other founding members that never sleep is inspiring. Questlove put out five books a year and deejays every night and still do the same day job that I do, only with more responsibility. It drives me to find a way to juggle it.

As we get further into our career we’re figuring out how to become more efficient as artists, and doing so many different things is testament to our cohesiveness as the Roots.

In a lot of places Jay-Z is considered God, Philly, our hometown being one of them.

We always do kinda like the bare bones representation or variation of the voice and drums, which is what we feel is the foundation or backbone of rapping and hip hop.

The first rhymes I wrote, I was 9. It was Kool Moe Dee-style.

I mean, I’m no superhero.

It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders the day I finally finished both verses for ‘My Shot.’

Philly DJs sort of always won battles and always won awards and stuff like that and were always super sharp.

When I was coming up, a freestyle wasn’t a freestyle unless everything was completely improvised, in-the-moment and right there, and you had to incorporate various elements of what was going on in the room on the day.

We don’t try to please everyone. Those older fans who expect something from The Roots are a tad more important to me than getting new fans.

I’ve become a functioning cog in the machine called The Roots, but in my youth I was comin’ from a more braggadocious, egotistical perspective.

I want to be at the top of my game.

So in my personal opinion, I definitely feel like I’m a legendary emcee, and I also feel like we’re a legendary brand, which is why I started rebranding ourselves years ago by saying ‘The Legendary Roots Crew,’ which is how we’re introduced on ‘The Tonight Show.’

I’m in great company and some may say that the underexposure has added to my allure and the staying power of me as a MC and The Roots as a band.

Questlove and I – we were in high school with artists like Boyz II Men and Amel Larrieux.

We’ve always been a band that intentionally transcended race and age.

Something that is funny, that I use sometimes if I’m doing comedy, is the fact that I’m now often mistaken for the rapper Rick Ross. And I don’t know that I’ve ever corrected anyone – like I’ve never said, ‘No no, I’m not Rick Ross, I’m Black Thought from The Roots.’

I work well within The Roots because I can let my music speak for itself while Ahmir does most of the press and the promotion and the brand-building because he enjoys that.

‘Rise Up’ is very necessary. Point blank.

Everything we’ve ever done has been for artistry’s sake, and for the greater good and paying homage to those who came before us and paving the way for those who come after us.

I move in silence. I don’t like puttin’ too much of me out there to be dissected, analyzed.

Commercial success won’t come to us from a change in the music. It will gradually be the result of a change in the appetite of the audience.

I think the true artist – musician, dancer, writer, actor – a true artist is able to sort of articulate pain and tragedy, in a way that sort of expresses what the listener or the beholder may have been feeling but was less able to communicate.

If there’s a track that’s rhyme friendly, the verse will basically write itself. If the track is less rhyme friendly, you have to put forth a little more effort to get the song out.

You can’t expect every idea of yours to stick or even come to fruition, you have to make sacrifices for the greater good of the team.

Anyone that I’ve ever worked with, it’s not like I just meet you or someone throws us together for the sole purpose of coming up with a song that’s gonna be a hit. I have to have some sort of relationship, or we had to have interacted on some other sort of level and that’s when it feels most natural.

I’ve always sort of listened to news radio.

You can only be the great artist for so long – come out with effort after effort that garners all this praise.