You got to go to school so you can learn certain information, certain skills and use it to empower your community.
Learning inside and outside school
Rap quotes about education and learning
Education here includes reading, classroom experiences, studying music and sharing knowledge. These 18 non-lyrical statements from 13 artists put those different routes to learning side by side. The sources include interviews and a talk. The speakers describe different paths, without promising one educational route will suit everyone.
Books, classrooms and learning a craft
Noname discusses access to radical texts and discoveries at the library. Latto and Posdnuos connect school writing to rap, while Aesop Rock describes his habit of noting interesting words. Other speakers question what formal education leaves out. Their disagreements are part of this collection, rather than a single message about staying in school.
Follow the conversation
Each card names its speaker and links to the source for the fuller answer. For broader reflections, browse wisdom and the craft of rap, or compare rapper interview quotes.
Dead Prez
The university was not able to offer any viable explanation as to what was going on in the world.
Westside Gunn
J. Cole
Vince Staples
Noname
More artists
If you’re not a student of history then you can’t have a fully developed story yourself.
do everything that you can possibly do to learn and educate yourself, and research how to not be taken advantage of in this business.
I was into comic books; my favourite class in school was English, where I could write stories.
I'm not learning to get a degree, I just wanna learn, I want to invent some shit.
We were students. We were students of people, students of the music, students of just energy and reaction.
But really anytime I hear a word that sounds interesting I write it down because I enjoy learning about them.
I haven't enrolled in school again, but I probably will — it's a luxury of doing this rap shit, and I like learning.
I first fell in love with wordplay. In school, my favorite subject was language arts, and I loved school.