Music as Activism Quotes

I hope that just what I sing about and how I relate to my audience is as much of a political statement as I need to make.

I've always done music to push people to get them to get uncomfortable in their seat so they could wrestle with things. Not to become pew potatoes, just simply sitting there, growing fat with knowledge and not applying it. It's a mixed tape that's really aimed and geared toward hip hop culture.

I made the decision that my contribution needed to be more musical than political. My music was enough, politically. Art matters. Art was enough. My music was enough to say what I had to say.

Beyonce has a platform; what's a better way to speak on your platform than through your music?

Could a person really make a social contribution through music consciously? I mean, beyond making a person happy to hear the song and more making a social contribution consciously through your music? For me, Stevie Wonder is the paragon of that. And I didn't want to be Stevie Wonder, but I did want to do what he does.

I think every revolutionary act is an act of love. Every song that I've written, it is because of my desire to use music as a way to empower and re-humanize people who are living in a dehumanizing setting. The song is in order to better the human condition.

People always ask me 'do you think there should be more bands doing political music?' and I say 'absolutely not.'

anyone who sings about love and harmony and life [john lennon] is dangerous to someone who sings about death and killing and subduing [Nixon]

I didn't choose to be a guitar player. That was something that felt like it was chosen for me. And with that blessing and curse, I, throughout my entire career, it's been my job to weave my convictions into my vocation. And whether I'm standing in the streets of Chicago or the Occupy Wall Street or in Madison, Wisconsin, my job is to steel the backbone of people on the frontlines of social justice struggles, and to put wind in sails of those struggles. And people who are fighting on a, on a daily basis, at a grass roots level, for the things that I believe in.