Nina Simone Quotes

Music is a powerful tool in galvanizing people around an issue. There's no better way to get your point across than to put it in a beautiful song.

Sometimes music isn't the way to talk politics, you know?

When I think about protest, I worry so much that people think about it only as standing in the streets. And I say that as someone who has been standing in the streets of cities across the country - but at the root of it is this idea of telling the truth in public.

You'll always see me at a political rally and the black strip club; I'm gonna represent smoking weed and supporting Trayvon Martin on my record, because I'm a whole man.

I need music. It's like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what's going on - bad games, press, whatever!

But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.

In most of the countries where the people don’t like their government, we are now allowed to ask whether people like their government.

They say they blame it on a song when someone kills a cop, what music did they listen to when they bombed Iraq?

You shouldn't listen to my music for political messages.

If you listen to 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' by Gil Scott-Heron, that album is dripping with rage.

Politics generally doesn't mix with sports very well.

Historically, art and music and writing and film have been one of the only tools that is effective against tyranny.

Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It's basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it's wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.

People are not afraid to be activists, to be vocal. And I think back to my years in college, and that wasn't the case.

Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is.

My mum taught me the power of protest.

Athletes aren't allowed to have an opinion. It's tough. Athletes are evolving right in front of our eyes. You see athletes who are politicians, etc., and still, we're told to shut up and dribble.

I used protest music as a vehicle.

To me, protesting and playing music go hand in hand.

In Japan, there has always been a small number of musicians who have been outspoken on social issues, but they tend to be dismissed as radical.

You can say that your ideas are bad for America, and frankly un-American, but don't say the person is a traitor.

I don't like politics in music.

Music that speaks of politics is less listened to than the music of partying, but it's still there.

'Black Skinhead' almost got deaded because it was too much like a soccer song.