Common Quotes

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

The very paradigm of revolution, of right versus wrong, good versus bad, is a relic with no bearing on the present. Yet artists, exhibitions, and curators valorize the sixties. People who wrote about these artists 30 years ago still write about them in the same ways, often for the same magazines.

When you do have songs where you're going to say something, some kind of statement about cultural or social stuff, that in general people love it. People love to be challenged in that way.

I wouldn't characterize my work, however, as directly political.

I think the good thing about Macklemore is that he is very precise about what he gets involved in. As you can tell, he's very passionate about what he puts his name on, because he talks about things people don't usually talk about, and his concepts are very, very passionate.

We're not a political band, we're a socially-minded band.

Technical skill counts for nothing if it is used only to manufacture films which have little to do with humanity.

I'm a musician. I'm not, like, a personality. I've never really pretended to perform that kind of function.

I don't do the media because of 'Woo-woo, Julia Butterfly,' as I call it. I'm not into promoting me. I'm into talking about why I've done what I've done, why I continue to do this work and why other people should care.

There's a social piece to what's going on in the Sugarland world, but we've never been a band that's political, and I maintain that.

I don't write political music. Political music is immediately obsolete.

All good art should be political, I think, and inevitably it all becomes political really, in one way or another.

It's not like I have campaigns, I don't want to be an activist or anything.

I consider myself to be an entertainer, given that I'm most known as MGK "the rapper" I don't have a problem with the label, I just want the people to know that I am much more than that.

I learned a lot from Elvis. He never took his image seriously. So many performers today put their image before themselves. It can ruin them. Like Elvis, I never took my image seriously.

I remember at one stage, I was like, 'Oh no. I'm going to be remembered as the 'Do You Mind' Girl.'

All the other rappers around me aren't saying anything worthwhile. They're lost in rap: all they do is tell you they're a sick MC and they're better than you. I don't want to look like all these other little punk, dress-up, fake, manufactured artists. I'm not a rapper. I'm an activist.

A lot of songs we've written have been political, but they're also personally political.

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

It is the responsibility of a director to introduce their politics in their films, and whether you like it or not your politics will be reflected unless you are an opportunist which some directors are.

I get recognized more for my tattoos than my face.

Now I am at the point people are believing in my music, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't talk about what I believe in.

Though I do believe that when you live in political times it is inevitable that your art be political, I also think we need to start making activists celebrities rather than trying to make celebrities to be activists.

I can show these folks I can do more than just the 'trap.' But what I realized is the trap is what they really recognize me for - that's what they want to hear.

I'm very aware of my image and the perception of me.