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.
BOOTS RILEYIn high school, everybody rapped. You just pounded on the table.
More Boots Riley Quotes
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I think there’s something your hormones do that makes a chemical change in the way you think.
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I thought there were too many songs about people’s personal lives.
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People give out compliments because it’s polite.
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I have tried to write songs quickly that get scrapped. I’ve also taken a long time on songs that get scrapped because you can over-think something, and you’ve squeezed the life out of it. As opposed to work of art, it looks like a really great work of craftsmanship.
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When my daughter was born, that was the first time I cried from happiness.
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Death to the pigs is my basic statement.
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I was an avowed professional revolutionary by the time I was 15.
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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.
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I am a person who always feels like I am not doing the right thing because there’s always so many things that need to get done.
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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.
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In high school, everybody rapped. You just pounded on the table.
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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.
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I wanted to be part of changing the world. I don’t want to just stand by and watch it be however it is.
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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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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.
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