Artist Activism Quotes

Ai Weiwei, who is both a widely admired conceptual artist and a fearless human-rights activist, has been on the bad side of the Chinese government for years.

My being bought as a politically outspoken artist is a more potent advertising tool for Apple than a 100 more explicit ads.

Wyclef is a musician that tried to unite as many musicians at once as possible. I am trying to be successful at that. The greatest challenge is that, I just got arrested for protesting in NYC for cutting the school budgets... And I think that it's important to stand up. Schools are important.

I think it's important that artists use their voices for so much more than just their talent.

People like Dick Gregory, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone show me what the definition of an artist is - it isn't just to make art but to speak truth to what's happening, speak beauty into the world, speak love into the world and also... get involved.

If politicians can't do it, I want to do it. We have to do it. Artists, put it in paintings. Poets, put it in poems, novels. That's what we have to do. And I think it's so important to save the world.

Musicians always come off sounding a little bit pretentious, and a little bit... I don't know, hypocritical, from what they do, talking about strong issues.

On some level, there's a limit to what the government really worries about when it comes to a guy like Ai Weiwei, who's talking to a limited audience of people. He's talking to people who more or less already agree with him.

Rappers are definitely role models and definitely should get involved. They're involved in politics whether they like it or not.

I feel as a singer and musician, it's my responsibility to talk about social issues, and you will hear about them in my music as well.

Even though it's become a really cliched thing to see musicians working for charity, it's still effective and it still has to be done.

Aretha Franklin was as important to the civil-rights movement as Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. Artists can choose to take on the tremendous amount of responsibility we have, or choose to ignore it.

The guys in U2, whom I work with a lot, have a very open political agenda.

Writers who are activists are very rarely taken seriously as artists.

Eminem isn't the first entertainer to part ways with his conservative fans.