QUOTES by Boots Riley
Find most favourite and famour Authors from A.A Milne to Zoe Kravitz.
When we were doing shows in the mid-'90s, the audiences were 95% black. What's happened now is the gentrification of hip-hop. A lot of cities passed ordinances that made it hard for black audiences to gather in large groups. Clubs are more open to hip-hop now 'cause it's the same crowd that goes to rock shows.
Quote by -Boots Riley
It's nice to be recognized for what you do, but that doesn't satisfy what I wanted out of this music, which is for people to hear it and get involved in movements and campaigns.
Quote by -Boots Riley
If I wasn't rapping about politics, then I might have been just another person trying to sell albums, and I might have sounded like everyone else out there.
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I think that in order to make revolution, you need to make reforms, but you should make these reforms with revolution in mind.
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The ultimate credo of capitalism is to exploit people. It's not like this is just an incidental problem; it's inherent in the system.
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I want my music to be not only representative of other people's lives but also contributing something to the struggle that people are going through.
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I've never really subscribed to the theory that repression breeds rebellion. I don't think that's really true.
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My training was with some old British communists who had organized unions in the '60s and '70s. And their philosophy was, if you can't drink a pint with a man, how are you gonna get him to go on strike and risk his life?
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I always have thought that part of being involved with life is the same thing as just wanting to kick it with your friends, and being involved with life on a deeper level is wanting to change the situation that you're in.
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For me, the association with rock is one of force and anger and aggression. And definitely, in the past, I've made songs that attack like that. But what I usually try to appeal to is peoples' everyday feelings, the things that they're going through as they deal with the system on a one-to-one level.
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There are a lot of people out there doing cool work. I went to South Africa with Talib Kweli and the Roots for a couple of weeks. And even a lot of the groups that aren't called 'political' or 'revolutionary' have a lot more to say than what you hear on the singles.
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Because of my politics, I don't necessarily think that the independent capitalist is that much better than the multinational capitalist; it's just that the independent capitalist hasn't grown as big yet.
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Either I'm really into the organizing, or I'm really into the music. As I've been going, I've been able to figure out ways to even it out a little more.
Quote by -Boots Riley
If the only time you bang the drum is when it's time to get someone elected, and you don't get involved in a mass movement, then you're working against real and substantive change.
Quote by -Boots Riley
The Obama campaign decimated the newly regenerated anti-war movement in 2008. And he definitely isn't anti-war.
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Until we can democratically control the wealth that is created from our labor, there isn't real democracy.
Quote by -Boots Riley
If what you want is actual change, then what has to be built is a mass movement that is militant and can use direct action to slow or stop profit. A movement that can do that can demand whatever it wants.
Quote by -Boots Riley
If I want to get my ideas out, I have to be involved in the mechanism that the world is ran by.
Quote by -Boots Riley
If people come to a record store, and they can't find your album, they buy something else.
Quote by -Boots Riley
Rarely, someone comes around that is influenced by so many things but is looking for a new way to do something.
Quote by -Boots Riley
The goal with a show is to push forward the passion in a visual and sonic way. It all comes out in a trance-like way, fast and pulsating. Then people can go home and think about the lyrics later.
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A lot of organizers tell me that while they are making signs or doing whatever they do, they are listening to the Coup.
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Capitalism and people who control the market have a large hand in everything. It doesn't have anything to do with figuring out what the crowd wants to hear. It has to do with the media deciding what they think people want to hear.
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A lot of us don't get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.
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If we created a society based on love, it would be a society without exploitation.
Quote by -Boots Riley
I think it's important for us not just to edit the culture that capitalism creates but to create the material basis for a culture that we want.
Quote by -Boots Riley
My father joined the NAACP when he was 12, in the '50s. He was part of the organizing efforts that led to some of the first sit-ins in North Carolina.
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I try to find creative ways to put ideas out to make the ground fertile for organizers.
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I used to be mad, at first, that I couldn't sound like Ice Cube. And I think that was probably one of the best things for me.
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I was in an organization called Progressive Labor Party and International Committee Against Racism. And I was - I started out helping to organize a farm workers' union in Central California.
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I was born in Chicago. I moved to Detroit until I was six and moved to Oakland at that point. And then we had a couple years in Stockton and Pasadena. And by the time I was 13, I was back in Oakland.
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People want things that address their everyday reality, and that goes for stuff that isn't political - with singer-songwriter music, people want things that touch them.
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We're told, 'If you want to change the world, vote.' And really, if you want to change the world, there's a lot more things that you can do.
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I think voting is the lowest form of political action that you can do. A lot of times, it keeps people from doing stronger things.
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People want something that's relevant to their lives. They want something that means something to them, and they want something where it seems like people have thought about what they're saying.
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Many people feel that unions aren't militant enough for them and don't do anything.
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The point is, is that when you elect a politician, it has nothing to do with their personality. Politicians perform a function, a role in government. And the role of city government is not one that serves the people, unless the people make them do what the people want.
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The Occupy Wall Street movement, in general, by putting this idea out there that the one percent is leeching off the 99 percent, is making a new discussion, making people figure out how to withhold their labor and come and put their issues on the table with the ruling class all over the country and all over the world.
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I don't need to be validated by academia, because that presupposes that academia is a pure endeavor and not guided by market forces, which is not the case.
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