It's difficult to really be ...

It's difficult to really be an artist nowadays. People are just on another page. You have a society that needs you to say something, but they don't want to give you the environment to be able to be just a functioning, happy, normal person. It's like, the industry is at odds with you, the society is at odds with you. You start to live in this very confined box where it's like, It's "me" and "them.
 See image
 Mos Def

Quotes from the same author

Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients Youngbloods can't spell, but they could rock you in PlayStation.
 See image
 Mos Def
What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends.
 See image
 Mos Def
What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends. The ability to have somebody read something and see it, or for somebody to paint an entire landscape of visual imagery with just sheets of words - that's magical.
 See image
 Mos Def
In the early '90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading.
 See image
 Mos Def
To me, the job of the artist is to provide a useful and intelligent vocabulary for the world to be able to articulate feelings they experience everyday, and otherwise wouldn't have the means to express in a meaningful and useful way.
 See image
 Mos Def