John Mellencamp Quotes

I think the race situation is getting better as far as people respecting each other goes. I think the race situation with entertainment is not that much better.

What I find cool about being a banned author is this: I'm writing books that evoke a reaction, books that, if dropped in a lake, go down not with a whimper but a splash.

I know some very political people who rap, and they say very political things and they'll never get a deal.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

There is no scientific reason why there should not be intermarriage between two human beings who happen to be of different race or color …. The determination of any white person not to have children with Negro, Chinese, or Irish blood is a desire which demands respect. In like manner, the tastes of others, no matter how few or many, who disagree, demand equal respect…. The determination of any white person not to have children with Negro, Chinese, or Irish blood is a desire which demands respect. In like manner, the tastes of others, no matter how few or many, who disagree, demand equal respect.

The first thing I ever heard about Barack Obama was that he had a white mother and a black father. Interestingly, the person who informed me of this spoke only matter-of-factly, with no hint of the gossip's wicked delight.

The race factor was just a minuscule part of what I was doing with Eminem. It was really about the music and how well we worked together.

I live in Brooklyn, and there's so many interracial couples in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, you don't talk about race like that.

One of the things that is so striking to me about the South, especially living here now as an adult, is that I see a lot more mixed-race couples than I saw when I was growing up in the 1980s and the 1990s. I feel like living across the color lines has become something that's more expected.

I didn't record 'Pumped Up Kicks' out of a sense of moral obligation.

'Angel Of Death' was a big problem. I remember getting a phone call after the album was done: Sony wasn't going to release it.

I was born in the Eighties, and at that time the idea of having a mixed-race child wasn't welcome. Then I was also an unusual mix nobody was used to seeing. So people weren't very accepting of me in the beginning, but later that changed.

We can't seem to put out an album without any drama.

One thing that N.W.A did, as Larry Flynt did before them, was to expand the boundaries of our reliance upon the good sense of the people to determine what's right and what isn't, what's obscene and what isn't, and what's immoral and what isn't.

I started out as a duo with Mis-Teeq's Sabrina Washington, and we worked for four or five years before signing a record deal. I had no money, and I was taking part-time jobs just to earn the train fare to get to rehearsals.

I wish that there were more games having the courage to talk about more subversive topics. Talking about politics, sexuality, human relationships.

A lot of times in a record company environment, it's, 'All right, go out on the road, go get some experience, come back in six months, and we'll see where we are.' I've erased that. Now it's, 'This is what we're working on today. I expect you to come in tomorrow and address this and be better.'

I just think that rap takes way more slack than the video games and the movies. We don't make guns. Smith and Wesson makes guns. Like, white people make guns and bullets, and all we're doing is rhyming and putting words together.

I had heard all the rumors and controversy swirling about the 'In Utero' recordings - there was a lot of, 'Oh, the record label hates it,' it was going to ruin the band, that kind of stuff.

Before I ever had my record deal, I just had a publishing deal over at Sony ATV. I had that title, 'Flatliner,' and just the idea of a girl stopping everybody's heart - just kind of a fun idea.

Very few teachers or leaders in my small Michigan community ever discussed the issue of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' and certainly no one came to the 1951 Novel's defense.

The first rule of multiculturalism is that you can't talk about multiculturalism.

I'm aware that I have a career. But, if I was the hottest in the game, songs all over the radio - let's say whoever produced made me super big. Like, that would be cool, but there would be something in me that goes, 'You only wrote the raps. You didn't make the beats. You didn't direct. You didn't do all that.'

Different cultures produce a different 'cool.' And your perception of 'cool' changes depending on where you are.

When people are like, 'Why are these white people walking around this black hood?' I'm like, 'Why aren't they?' If it ain't bothering nobody, they can do whatever they want! They're in the hood to make it better.