Aloe Blacc Quotes

That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems.

Speaking out against rap music is useless, and it's futile. The reality is there's criticism for everything, but Jay-Z is one of the most remarkable artists of our time of any genre, and as a hip-hop artist he carries the weight of that art form with such splendor and grace and genius.

In America, there's more of the question, should music be political or should it just be for entertainment purposes, whereas around the world that's not even an issue. I think people just assume that music should be everything.

The fact is that Hollywood, from as early as the sixties to the present time, has ghettoized cinema into the big industry, a marketing industry. In doing this, the audiences have lost touch with the aspects of film which were to be informative and educational and even spiritual.

I think Tupac was more someone who was trying to inform us about what was going on, and he did it through entertainment.

Ultimately, if someone's paying hard-earned money to see me play live, they don't want a rant about what's happening on the other side of the world. They don't want to know which way they should vote.

Politics and music should only mix to a point. Me, I think my job as a musician is to make people try to forget about all that.

While I feel it's important for films to examine our society, I don't particularly like watching the films that do it.

My art and poetry is very political now. Because you've got to find that truth within you and express yourself. Somewhere out there, I know, there will be people who will listen.

I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions.

I spent so many years of my life as a stage actor and when you do all these plays, a lot of really great plays are very politically driven. They deal with deep social issues, and that's the kind of stuff that I love, as an audience member.

In my opinion, the true pioneers are those artists who make manifest in their works the new content, the determining characteristics of life in our time.

I found out a long time ago that if I didn't have a good story for a song, I could just make one up! Now it seems over half the stories in my show are made up. The funny thing is, those seem to be the ones that resonate the most with the audiences.

Stories in which the destruction of society occurs are explorations of social fears and issues that filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, painters have been examining for a long time.

I listen to music that is of our time and I just get angry.

All my films have some kind of statement about something - but I have to coat it with entertainment to make it palatable. Otherwise it becomes a polemic, and people don't want to see it. If you're trying to get a message out to people, you've got to entertain them at the same time.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Punk was more based on social change than on music, so it didn't bother me too much. It wasn't really a musical threat.

If you want to know what's going on in America, you have to watch soap operas.

And I want to thank Bernie Sanders. Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary. You've put economic and social justice issues front and center, where they belong.

I think that there are artists of different genres whose calling is to use their art to hope to affect and better the human condition - whether it's System of a Down, or Rage Against the Machine, or Public Enemy, or the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, or Pete Seeger. It's a group that I'm proud to be counted among.

Essentially, you know, one of the great advantages of working in science fiction is it does give you an opportunity to talk about interesting and somewhat controversial themes and social issues and in a way that doesn't really threaten the audience, because I'm not challenging their particular points of view.

I don't think it's an artist's responsibility to be political all the time. I think your first responsibility as an artist is to make music that people will listen to and enjoy. However, I think that when you are able to say something that is moving and put it in a great song, then that is even better.

I feel that art deals with issues way before any political organisation.

I sing about social issues, not the boy-girl stuff.