Quotes from Ali Shaheed Muhammad

When it comes to music, something I'm passionate about, and knowing the reach and the power and how it transforms, it saves lives. Music does.

I keep saying if I ever get a good amount of quiet time that I want to learn to play cello. It's a very warm instrument. The tone of the cello and the movement - I don't know what is; I love it so much.

When you are creating something artistically and are speaking to or representing a culture that you know truthfully, you are doing a good job.

Music is an important thing of energy. And there are a lot of wonderful aspects that come with it and vibrations, the physical vibrations, the movement of notes through an instrument and creating a wave that resonates into our spirit.

I think at some point there may be artists who will get fed up, and they deliberately want to use their art as a means to rock the waves a little bit. And instead of doing the status quo, they'll deliberately go out to really make a change. I think Kendrick Lamar is an example of that.

Corporations always are controlling things, and we have the ability every day to do something about that. Every day.

I do think that hip-hop has a relationship with comic book culture, and Kung Fu movies too, for that matter.

Hip-hop has had this history where the predecessor just is so harsh and not nice to the next coming generation that it creates this separation and this gap.

But I could not imagine having a child and the child not having a relationship with music that opens up their mind and their imagination and teaches them things.

I'm a very good listener. I think that's one of the things that makes me a good producer. But it's a challenge for me because my custom is to listen and absorb what someone is saying and take it in, and not necessarily comment.

Because I express myself through the music, I want to be responsible in that expression and how it carries on well after I'm here. But that's just me.

Nothing new is on the earth right now. Technology, the things that we're discovering, it's been sitting here just waiting for someone to brush it off and go, 'Oh, let me read that. Let me see how I can use this information.' And it doesn't matter if it's from a tech perspective or a philosophical perspective.

The DJ still has the relationship with the people, I believe. I don't know to call the DJ 'the ambassadors' or what, but we still are connecting the dots, getting the good stuff and passing it on to the people. DJs still have relevance, even with the technology that elevates the DJ beyond being a selector.

Raphael Saadiq said to me, quite often, that Chuck D was his history teacher. And so he got a lot from the music, things that he wasn't getting maybe in school. And I feel the same way with regards to Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder.

I think that any story that intends on being culturally authentic and true to life experiences will be a great story. Even if that culture isn't a hip-hop-centric one.

I've never been good at getting on people's nerves, and from the little quotes I read, it's like, 'You're not doing enough in your life if you're not making someone angry.' And I'm like, 'Man. But my life - I seem to help people get somewhere, so am I not? Should I be more aggressive?' That's the way my inside voice sounds.

Here in America, our use of time is not harmonious with humanity's better spirit.

Discipline is not consistency, and the reason why I say that is - like, for an example, making prayer five times a day, that establishes routine and consistency. That I can do. And having certain fundamental consistencies in business, can do. But time management, outside of that, that's where that's a challenge.

You should be able to be influenced by art no matter where it comes from.

As an artist, sometimes you'd rather not do the interview. You might feel the interviewer isn't educated on you... or what you're about.

Kanye West, I love you. You might not have known, but I have said in other interviews that you're my hero.

That's the beautiful thing about being an artist, is you can take risks and take chances and hopefully be secure enough to just keep going with it if you fall flat on your face.

If you allow yourself to be closed, especially to a younger generation, then that's death. That's instant death.

I'm a believer in the nap. I don't care what it is. 15 minutes. Five hours. If you know someone's going to come back and come to work.