Saul Williams Quotes

I mean, there's a hell of a lot of grounds for protest, but you don't do it through music.

I want to use my music to deliver a political message and sometimes to denounce, but I don't want to be a politician.

Violent resistance and nonviolent resistance share one very important thing in common: They are both a form of theater seeking an audience to their cause.

I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.

I've played hundreds of protests. I've marched on dozens of picket lines. I've strummed my guitar at innumerable demonstrations.

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

My theater has always been a political battle on the stage.

For the people of Baltimore, I don't criticize rioting, because I understand it. But after the fires die down, organize, strategize, and mobilize.

I am mindful that the goal of protest is not more protest, but the goal of protest is change.

A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.

I am totally against the war but violence is part of mankind and it's going to happen, but as musicians I think we've got to step up and say 'come on'.

The most exciting things going on in America today are movements to change America.

I think we're all enmeshed in this political system that is devoted to controlling reproduction. You didn't invent it; I didn't invent it. Thirty percent of us are trying to preserve it, and 70 percent are trying to change it. We're not active enough or voting enough or mad enough.

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.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

My early years as a political activist were dominated by the poll tax.

I definitely believe that art is the best way to produce social change.

I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.

There is no degree of human suffering which in and of itself is going to bring about change. Only organisation can change things.

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

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.

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.

Rebellion is obsolete - change things from the inside working out.

I think you have to ask yourself does voting work on the level that you are trying to effectuate change; that is the conversation you must have.

I view music as entertainment. When I'm on stage, I don't look at that as a platform for sharing ideology. Otherwise I'd be a zealot myself. That's why, when people ask me, 'Do you think you can change the world through your music?' I say, 'I doubt it.'