KRS-One Quotes

#1. Hip is the knowledge and Hop is the movement..

KRS-One

#2. Rap is still an art, and no-one's from the Old School
Cuz rap is still a brand-new tool

KRS-One

#3. It's not that you don't make any money doing conscious rap music. You make a lot of money doing this, but if you're greedy and you're not satisfied with $500,000 a year, and you want $2 million a year, then you will suffer as a conscious rap artist.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#5. 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.

KRS-One

#6. I told Wayne to his face he was the dopest MC out. MC, not rapper. I told him to his face because I believe that, Wayne is nice! Wayne is bananas with his lyrics, with his whole delivery, with his whole thing. Lil Wayne is the man!

KRS-One

#7. You know something, it's best no to have what you need
because then, you start looking for what you need
and make it what you need.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#12. If you're a conscious rap artist and you're worried about Billboard charts, you're gonna have a problem.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#16. 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.

KRS-One

#17. 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.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#19. Yo Premier, why these rappers so soft?
They corny ass raps be makin me doze off.

KRS-One

#20. Deepak Chopra, look at him. He's probably the most successful self-help guru in the world. I don't think he's struggling for any marketing or exposure. You've just got to know where your audience is.

KRS-One

#21. 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

KRS-One

#22. I've enjoyed much success. The IRS is always at my door, constantly.

KRS-One

#23. As a conscious rap artist, you should not want to be in a gangster market. You should be trying to establish your own market, create a place where you can be yourself and make some money and feed your family.

KRS-One

#24. Ignorance is a poison and knowledge will nourish.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#26. 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.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#30. Kings lose crowns but teachers stay intelligent

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#32. 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

KRS-One

#33. 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.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#35. 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!

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#38. There could never really be justice on stolen land.

KRS-One

#39. Real men are real friends, showing their real commitment.

KRS-One

#40. Hip-hoppers are not interpreting what hip-hop is, and when we do interpret it, we interpret it as something immature, unorganized, and outlaw.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#42. The true word of God is written in our heart.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#44. There's a Universe Instrument, where we apply Hip-Hop to astronomy, and we flush out the chemistry of Hip-Hop. We also flushed out the astronomy, to see where Hip-Hop is read in the stars.

KRS-One

#45. Rap is something you do Hip Hop is something you live

KRS-One

#46. 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.

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#48. The courage to be yourself is the essence of hip hop

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

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

KRS-One

#51. I used to let the olde english 8- suds bubble in the last car of the Franklin Avenue shuttle

KRS-One

#52. I'm not an executive. I can do it, I have the mind for it, but there's a life that you have to lead, and you have to give up your creative freedom. That's what I don't want to give up.

KRS-One

#53. I know that I'm freer as a hip-hopper than as an executive. Even as a black man, I enjoy more freedom as a hip-hopper than as a black man. That, s controversial to say, but it's the truth.

KRS-One

#54. Stop the negativity and control our creativity

KRS-One

#55. I break an emcee off proper
Yo don't check me,
Ask your Moms and Pops,
Yo they respect me,
But here you stand, tryin' to get yours, but gettin' nothin'
You probably can't spell "Boogie Down" or "Productions"

KRS-One

#56. Hip-Hop is being spoken through spirituality ... Meaning that you'll be able to listen to it spiritually for yourself.

KRS-One

#57. Rap is like a set-up ... a lot of games,
A lot of suckers with colorful names.
'I'm so-and-so,' 'I'm this, I'm that.'
But they all just wick-wick-wack.

KRS-One