101 Quotes by Boots Riley

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.

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.

I think art is communication. To that extent, it can be the words between the words. It has a possibility of communicating something more than people can do with prose or just talking.

A lot of organizers tell me that while they are making signs or doing whatever they do, they are listening to the Coup.

There's the part of me that's the organizer, part of me that's the artist, part of me that's the person who, even with those two things, wants to figure out what my place in the world is. How to engage with it and whether my life has any meaning.

I just make music based on what I believe.

Oakland has always had artists attempting to define the immense beauty and ridiculousness around them.

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.

Rarely, someone comes around that is influenced by so many things but is looking for a new way to do something.