Afrika Bambaataa Quotes

Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.

There's a lot of hip-hop that's oriented toward a progressive view of America because it's oriented toward a civil rights progress and a critique of the power structure.

Well, a lot of people within government and big business are nervous of Hip Hop and Hip Hop artists, because they speak their minds. They talk about what they see and what they feel and what they know. They reflect what's around them.

It's important for me, politically, to see that theater isn't just about the powerful.

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.

I don't like political rappers.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

I think that Hiphop should be a pulpit for the people.

These young people have to know that Dr. King and others made it possible for them to do their Hip Hopping.

When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when anti-racism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other, and both interests lose.

I don't know that there is a, quote, 'hip-hop lifestyle.' I think the music responds to complex social issues and injustices; I think it also raises complex social questions.

I think if you're going to make political art, you have to engage at some level. You can't just write about politics, you have to try and be politics as well.

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.

I don't think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hop's ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures.

I like the way hip-hop is now. It's grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it.

Maybe rock 'n' roll isn't music. Maybe people just need to be reminded that the world ain't the way they think it is.

I'd like to see people pay attention to the science of hip hop. The knowledge part, the political side of what hip hop could do, or where hip hop is gonna go. I always say it's gonna become universal as we become a galactic union.

Music is always a commentary on society.

I've written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism.

All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.

Protest is patriotic. Since the beginning of musical time, American singers and songwriters have used their talent and bully pulpits to show us America's strengths and shortcomings.

Hip-hop is supposed to uplift and create, to educate people on a larger level and to make a change.

Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

When I say 'hip-hop is dead,' basically, America is dead. There is no political voice. Music is dead.

Public Enemy is the security of the hip-hop party.