Adnan Sami Quotes

I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.

Hollywood likes to boast that it can elevate the national conscience.

Movies are movies, and I don't think any of them are going to hurt the moral fiber of America and all that nonsense.

The artist has tremendous power to change the world.

Now, I don't know whether a film can change the world, but I know that it starts - I know the power of it - I know that it starts people thinking about how to change the world.

Burmese authors and artists can play the role that artists everywhere play. They help to mold the outlook of a society - not the whole outlook, and they are not the only ones to mold the outlook of society, but they have an important role to play there.

Pop music has greater power to change people and to affect people because it's a universal language. You don't have to understand music to understand the power of a pop song.

It's fair to say that white America wouldn't have elected an African-American president without the integrating effect of black music - from Louis Armstrong to hip-hop - and black drama and fiction, commercial as much as 'serious.'

Unfortunately, we are living in an era where plenty of songs with vulgar, objectionable lyrics are also becoming popular. It's a disturbing trend, and I feel really sad when I see small kids dancing to such numbers in television shows. In my career so far, I have refused any song whose lyrics I haven't been comfortable with.

I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.

Michael Jackson carried urban America and eventually American society on his vocal cords for a good 25 to 30 years before even hip-hop became the vox populi of America, and then as an adult he shattered racial barriers.

A painter, a sculptor, a writer, they can express freely. They don't affect society as a whole. We build buildings that have a purpose, that stay there for hundreds of years or decades.

I believe art has to take responsibility but it should not give up being art.

Anytime you can be a part of something that hopefully tries to make a cultural contribution, I love the idea of that.

Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change.

I think that we, as the African-American men in hip-hop, we have a greater responsibly because we have the ears of so many millions of our young people. And they listenin'.

I want to change the world. I want to be a part of culture. I want to help teach.

Not all our movies have a social message, but I love the ones that do, and I'd love to do more of them.

Political culture has become popular culture.

If you look at pop culture as the main picture you see of black men, all these kind of threatening pictures and - I think those of us who are artists and who are in media have to think carefully about what those pictures are.

Diddy and Ciroc are moving culture forward, while communicating the importance of social responsibility.

I want society to feel they are part of a process of change.

Outwardly seeing how your music effects culture and everyday life, is amazing.

Hip-hop basically controls the world through fashion, through music, through language, through culture. It's basically running the world, no matter what anyone wants to think, and that's just the way it is.

I am trying change trends in movies, just as I am trying to change trends in politics.