KRS-One Quotes

Hip is to know, it's a form of intelligence. To be hip is to be update and relevant. Hop is a form of movement, you can't just observe a hop, you gotta hop up and do it. Hip and hop is more than music Hip is the Knowledge, hop is the Movement. Hip and Hop is Intelligent movement

Educate yourself make your world view bigger, visualize wealth, and put yourself in the picture

You know, you don't see with your eyes You see with your brain And the more words your brain has The more things you can see

Take a look at the police and how they treat you, Take a look at these corporations that cheat you. Democrats and Republicans are all see-through. Now we votin for the lesser of two evils... Man, don't let 'em deceive you. This is an autocracy, not a democracy, But to call this a democracy without mock interest In the laws of society? That's called hypocrisy.

I am the manifestation of study, NOT the manifestation of money. Therefore, I advance through thought, NOT what's manufactured and bought.

If Hip Hop has the ability to corrupt young minds, it also has the ability to Uplift them.

Rappers spit rhymes that are mostly illegal, MC's spit rhymes to uplift their people.

I grew up in them streets, like everyone else but instead of pushin' drugs, I pushed knowledge of self

Kings lose crowns but teachers stay intelligent

Trust in God, that's where the crown is at. It's not in what you get, it's what happens after that.

Black people are just constantly immature in their thinking, undisciplined, and we suffer as a people. This is not about race in the sense that black people got to get something better than whites or Latinos or Asians. This is just basically that we keep complaining about what we don't have and what we can't do, and then, when we get in positions to do stuff, we fight amongst ourselves like savages.

When I say hip-hoppers, I mean black, white, Asian, Latino, Chicano, everybody. Everybody. Hip-hop has united all races. Hip-hop has formed a platform for all people, religions, and occupations to meet on something. We all have a platform to meet on now, due to hip-hop. That, to me, is beyond music. That is just a brilliant, brilliant thing.

Rap is something you do Hip Hop is something you live

The courage to be yourself is the essence of hip hop

I'd rather make one righteous dollar on my level Than make a million dollars spittin' rhymes for the devil.

Ignorance is a poison and knowledge will nourish.

No [other rappers are on my level], none of them. Here, let me put it like this in the sky, there are a million stars, but when the sun appears, you see none of them. I am the sun.

There could never really be justice on stolen land.

If the society that we're talking about is a society that starts wars all over the world, degrades indigenous cultures, is misogynistic in itself, if that's the society we're talking about, then it's not a bad thing if hip-hop did degrade that society.

You got to have style, and learn to be original.

We [black people] don't respect our elders. Besides artists, we don't respect Frederick Douglass. We don't respect Martin Luther King. You look at every Martin Luther King Boulevard out here, and it's a crack block. That's not because of white people. That's because of black leadership. We just have that problem, and it's something that I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to conquer.

Don't you think it's time we thought about the future? Whether our children are gonna be winners or losers

Teach the student what needs to be taught. 'Cause black and white kids both take shorts When one doesn't know about the other one's culture, Ignorance swoops down like a vulture.

If we have power to degrade an entire society, then we also have the power to uplift it.

Are you tired of lyrical liars, passing fliers, Wannabe MC's, but really good triers, Tripping over mic cords, getting you bored, A total fraud, this kind of thing I can't afford!

Love yourself and your expression, you can't go wrong.

The whole world is conscious. It's just that we become conscious at times, and you become conscious when you lose a parent, or just a loved one, period - a wife, a brother, you know. You wake up and say, "Man, it's real. I don't need this pimp gangster stuff anymore, I need something with a little more substance." And there is marketing for that.

Teachers teach and do the world good, Kings just rule and most are never understood

You are not doing hip hop; you ARE hip hop.

You were put here to protect us. But who protects us from you?

Hip is the knowledge and Hop is the movement.

If you're true to the upliftment of people and the unity of people, raising the self-worth of people, then you live within your means. But the problem is that we're looking at the grass on the other side, saying, "That's greener. I want to be in the thug market, but I want to be a conscious rap artist." It doesn't work like that.

It's not about a salary, it's all about reality.

I'm not saying I'm number 1, oh sorry I lied.. I'm number 1,2,3,4 and 5

Stop the negativity and control our creativity

I think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital "H," and as one word. It's the name of our black people culture, and it's the name of our identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that's slavery, because you're talking about people's souls. To me, that's the biggest problem.

...Cops just surrounding me with pistols everywhere. They put me in the backseat of their car handcuffed, Pushed out them chests like they're big rough and tough. A cop come and said 'You'll never sell your guns now.' I said 'It doesn't matter, you'll sell them anyhow. You take the guns from me, you sell them for a fee; Anyway you put it, they'll get in the city!'

Do you ever think about when you outta here? Record deal and video, outta here!? Mercedes Benz and Range Rover, outta here!?

Too many MC's take that word 'emcee' lightly; They can't Move a Crowd, not even slightly.

Believers of Jesus be denouncing Satan on every level, But every Halloween they're dressin' like devils.

I make intelligence cool. I make spirituality cool. If we can make one's devotion to God cool, then I think I did a great thing. I can rest in peace.

I haven't come to tell you I've got juice I just produce, create, innovate on a higher level

So you think that hip-hop had it's start out in Queensbridge, If you popped that junk up in the Bronx you might not live.

Hip-hop as a culture itself goes through stages. It grows - it's breathing, living. I've noticed that we usually start off conscious, then we wind up very highly sexual, and then we thug it out. Then things get a little funny again, with comedy and that kind of thing.

The true word of God is written in our heart.

You sleep with a man, that's your husband. So make sure before you lay down, you love him.

Real men are real friends, showing their real commitment.

Rebel, renegade, must stay paid.

It's just hypocrisy on hip-hop's part to cry racial profiling when your race is on TV acting like fools.

The single most important lesson I learned is that black people are the cause of black people's demise.