We lived in a ghetto. I could have pretended I was hard or tough and not a square. I wound up not getting in trouble. I don't consider myself to be especially wise, but I will say that it's pretty clear that some people want to get out and some people don't. I wanted out.
If the Jews had issues with the Polish people then why during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, did the Jewish underground hang two flags from the bunker - the Polish flag and the flag of the Jewish people? Why? They did it because they felt part of Polish society and that is how we view them as well.
I come from the ghetto in Brazil, where we don't have a lot of career opportunities, so I'm sure my family and people who live there never imagined that one day I'd become a singer and be able to perform at an event like the Olympics.
A majority of Bon Qui Qui is my little brother, who is ghetto fabulous. He has no filter whatsoever. He just says what's on his mind.
The trouble with us is that the ghetto of the Middle Ages and the children of the twentieth century have to live under one roof.
It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it.
There's no success story. Everybody's got a ghetto story. You always want to make it bigger than what it is.
If the Negro in the ghetto must eternally be fed by the hand that pushes him into the ghetto, he will never become strong enough to get out of the ghetto.
This assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible.
When I first heard rap, I wasn't quick to be critical. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I had a feeling it was a reflection of what's been happening in the ghetto.
