Damian Marley Quotes

When reggae was introduced to the world, it was a voice of the oppressed, a music with integrity that you can enjoy holistically. Throughout the years, what has become commercial kind of strayed from the integrity.

One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.

I like Peter Tosh, Bob Marley of course. All of Capleton, Sizzla, Frisco Kid, Buju Banton.

somebody/ anybody sing a black girl's song bring her out to know herself to know you but sing her rhythms carin/ struggle/ hard times sing her song of life she's been dead so long closed in silence so long she doesn't know the sound of her own voice her infinite beauty she's half-notes scattered without rhythm/ no tune sing her sighs sing the song of her possibilities sing a righteous gospel let her be born let her be born & handled warmly.

My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom.

This music is about struggle. Reggae is a vehicle to carry a message of freedom and peace.

Reggae music isn't Jewish, but a lot of the ideas are.

Reggae, oh man. It's the ultimate music. The positivity. The musicality. The whole cultural expressionism of it. The danceability. Just the cool factor. The melody factor. Some of it comes from a religious place. If there were a competition of who makes the best religious music, it would definitely be the Rastafarian reggae.

I grew up with reggae music.

Frankly, I think that's something that black people in America have often done - finding ways under very, very difficult circumstances to be subversive, but also to push things forward. And I think that applies to music. I think it applies to dance. I think it applies to a number of things.

The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.

There's something really powerful when I, for example, hear Bob Marley's 'Exodus' - we know where we're going. We know where we're from.

Reggae music don't really focus on one thing, you know. If reggae music is speaking about the struggle of people, and the suffering, it don't mean black people. It mean people in general.

The vision of Israel's prophets became the pillar of fire leading the struggle in support of the weak and the different towards equality.

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

I often think of Audre Lorde and her saying that we don't live and we don't fight for one specific struggle.

Jah come to break downpression, rule equality, wipe away transgression, set the captives free.

The hope of remaking the world is indispensable in the struggle of oppressed men and women.

I'm not trying to get power over white. I'm involved in a freedom struggle. Not a power struggle.

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise.

The suffering of our people is greater than our differences. We are not yet free at last, so there is work to be done.

If you wanna hear what the people are saying, you can hear what the Rastaman saying.

Unfortunate. Unfortunate. Sometimes people struggling for freedom lose their way.

Certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation.

Poetry cannot block a bullet or still a sjambok, but it can bear witness to brutality-thereby cultivating a flower in a graveyard.