Boots Riley Famous Quotes
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I just make music based on what I believe.
I've been involved in a lot of different kinds of projects. I've been on straight hip hop tours. I've been on underground rock tours. I've been on multimillion selling rock shows. I've been in the jam band thing, and both commercial and underground hip hop. Very few people listen to one kind of music.
Rappers are usually rapping about knowledge they think people need to get by in the world. If there's no movement that gives the idea that the knowledge people need is how to take over the system, what they see is that people need to know how to hustle; people need to know how to survive.
Death to the pigs is my basic statement.
When my daughter was born, that was the first time I cried from happiness.
I wanted to write a song about sexism, but I didn't want to do it in a mechanical way and be like, "Don't be sexist!" because that's not how I talk in regular life.
In reality, I know I'm not hurt directly by sexism; however, my life is made less because of it, so I started thinking about the fallout from relationships in which people feed off each other.
It's usually important to me to get my idea out first because a lot of times my ideas will seem weird to musicians.
Becoming a father made me a lot more sentimental than I ever was before. I never cried at movies before I became a parent. I feel music more intensely. I think of my political ideas as ideas about how I want to interact with other human beings as opposed to abstract theories about how the world should be.
I had no idea how much the stuff I was doing was affecting people outside Oakland. At the time, also, hip hop wasn't able to tour because all these clubs that let hip hop come in now, they would never have let hip hop come in.
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.
Sometimes it takes time to get into what ideas actually mean to you. Even when you're not writing a song, it's like that.
In high school, everybody rapped. You just pounded on the table.
If you press your ear to the turf that is stolen
You can hear the sound of limitations exploding
Please sir, may we have another portion?
We're children of the beast that dodged the abortion
Neck placed firm 'tween the floor and the Florsheim
We'll shut your shit down, don't call it extortion
Caution -- we're coming for your head
So call the Feds and get files to shred
Every textbook read said bring you the bread
But guess what we got you instead?
We got the guillotine, we got the guillotine
I was an avowed professional revolutionary by the time I was 15.
What I'm trying to do is make music that people relate to, that talks about ideas that are personal but also make that connection to trying to make revolutionary change, and I don't need to change my music to get to a certain audience.
A lot of what we say and do are regurgitated things that have to do with what we think we're supposed to be saying and doing.
I lived in Detroit until I was six. My older sister was living with us, and she listened to the Ohio Players and Stevie Wonder, so I grew up listening to stuff like that.