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I Don't Have Friends, And It's Hard For Me To Make New Friends. Right Now, The People That Are In My Life Are The People That I Work With.

-Questlove

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I Don't Have Friends,

Questlove

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I Don't Have Friends, And It's Hard For Me To Make New Friends. Right Now, The People That Are In My Life Are The People That I Work With.

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During The 2008 Election, I Made Clear To The Obama Campaign That I Don't Think It's Wise For Me To Force My Personal Political Agenda On Anyone.

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And Even Though People Like To Furrow Their Brow Like They Suspect You're Not Being Honest About Yourself, The Truth Is That They Worry That You're Not Serving Their Idea Of You.

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I Have A Lot Of Those 'forrest Gump,' I-was-there Moments.

I Don't Think Crack Happened By Accident. I'm Part Conspiracy Theorist, Because You Can't Develop Something That Dangerous And Have It Not Be Planned.

At 25, My Idea Of Success May Have Been More Vain, Like, "i'll Be Good The Day That There's $20 Million In My Account And I Have This Particular House And The Wife And 2.5 Kids." But At 40 - And I Know It's Kind Of Silly Telling You Guys This - But As Long As My Metacritic Rating Stays Above 80, That's All I Care About.

Time Will Tell. Time Is Always Telling. Time Never Stops Telling.

Resistance Here Doesn't Mean Revolution. It Doesn't Mean Storming The Barricades. Resistance Means Using Art For The Things That It Does Best, Which Is To Create Human Portraits And Communicate Ideas And Forge A Climate Where People Of Different Races Or Classes Are Known To You Because They Make Themselves Known. In The Simplest Terms, Art Humanizes. It Opens The Circuit Of Empathy. And Once That Process Happens, It's That Much Harder To Think Of People As Part Of A Policy Or A Statistic. Art Reverses The Alienation That Can Creep Into Society.

For Anyone That's Ever Had A Musical Breakthrough In Their Career, It's Always Followed By The Departure Period Right After.

We Have To Get Back To "we." It's Important To Get Back To "we" Not Just "i."

I Cannot Keep A Girlfriend Longer Than Seven Months. I Have 12 Jobs. I Don't Have Time For My Personal Life. I'm Fully Aware That This Is The Sacrifice.

Classical Music Requires An Immense Amount Of Concentration, And I Don't Know If I Would've Been That Committed To That Particular Life.

Classical Music

What I'm Slowly Realizing Is That I Believe That Most Of Us Felt That We Could Relax A Little Bit After November 2, 2008, Because Of The Progress And The Spirit That It Took To Get Barack Obama In The White House. And What We Didn't Realize, Is That Was Really The Beginning. That Was Really The Beginning Of The Struggle And Not The End Of A Struggle, To Come From Colonial Times Through Slavery, Through The Jim Crowe Laws, Through The Civil Rights Period To The White House As, Like A Point A/point B Journey. Point B Of Course Being The End.

I Love Traveling The States No Matter What. I Love Traveling Abroad, Going To Japan And Australia. I Love It. I Never Get Tired Of It.

I Don't Believe In Good Music And Bad Music Anymore. I'm Through With That Phase Of My Life. Sometimes I Just Wanna Feel Good, So I Put On A Good Record. But Mostly I'm More Of A Businessman Than A Music Fan, So I'm Listening To Music In Terms Of, Is This Effective Or Not Effective?

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I Was One Of Those Skeptics That Thought That Yoga Was For Kooks. Now I'm On A Very Strict Regimen. You Know, I Work Out. That's Another Thing I've Learned Relaxin', Sleep, Yoga. I Didn't Know That That's As Crucial As Going Hard, As Workin' Hard, As Exercising Hard. I Never Knew. I Thought That, "okay, I Gotta Be At The Gym Like Five Hours Everyday Going Balls To The Wall." And What My Yoga Instructor, What My Trainer, What They're Trying To Teach Me Is That, "no, It's Sleep." That's Important. That's Just As Important As Workin' Out.

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I Feel Like The Downfall Of Any Person Is The Second An Artist Starts Celebrating Their Work Themselves, That Becomes Problematic. And You Know, I Don't Sit There, I Don't Bask In The Awards I've Won, You Know, Read My Bank Statements, I Refuse. To Me, That's How You Start Losing The Hunger. So For Me Personally, I Just Don't Celebrate It. I'm Happy, Right Now.

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I've Always Been A Lover Of Hoodies. I'm A Guy That Travels A Lot. I'm A Guy That Spends A Lot Of Time On A Cold Air-conditioned Tour Bus. I'm A Guy That Likes To Watch Movies In Peace. I'm A Guy That Likes To Travel In The Airport In Peace.

Highlight Reels Are About That One Person. After A Barrage Of Highlight Reels, You Get The Sense That You Can Do It Without A Team. But Music Thrived The Most When Groups Were Involved. People Lose Sight Of That - That Community Makes The World Run.

Kurt Cobain Represents A Very Legit, Realistic Outlook. Before That, In My Head, To Be A White Artist Was To Be Privileged.

Just Because The Laws Were Changed Doesn't Mean That The Attitudes Have Changed.

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Half The Time, My Job Is Basically To Talk People Off The Ledge. It's More Psychological Than Just Me Picking Up Some Sticks And Counting, "1, 2, 3, 4."

I Do Secret Stand-up Shows Around New York. I Announce And Tweet This To Nobody - I Get Onstage And I Do A Quick Five Minutes.

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Hip-hop Is So Much About Character And Caricature That People Just See You As A Character. Very Rarely Are You Flesh And Bone To People.

My Life's Goal Is To Find A Happy Medium For Sampling To Be Not Only Legal But For The Right Parties To Benefit From It. There Have To Be Sampling Laws. The Survival Of Hiphop Is Based On That.

According To My Parents, I Just Started Drumming When I Was Two. I Traveled With Them From Five To Seven On The Road, Playing Percussion. Between 8 And 12, My Dad Sort Of Prepared Me By Teaching Me Every Aspect Of Road Life.

I Don't Have Friends, And It's Hard For Me To Make New Friends. Right Now, The People That Are In My Life Are The People That I Work With.

Part Of Me Would Just Like To Relax And Have One Job That Pays Me The Amount I Need To Survive. And Another Part Of Me Wants The Creativity That Comes Out Of Struggle And Frustration And Fear. It's A Never-ending Cycle, Which Must Be How I Want It, On Some Level.

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