Boots Riley Quotes

• I wanted to be part of changing the world. I don't want to just stand by and watch it be however it is.

  Boots Riley

  Watches, World, Want

  5 Copy quote

• What the media is playing is what people want is really a false idea. 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.

  Boots Riley

  Thinking, Media, Hands

  "Dance Dance Revolution". Interview with Gary Moskowitz, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2007.

  13 Copy quote

• Death to the pigs is my basic statement.

  Boots Riley

  Pigs, Statements

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Thinking, Saying And Doing, Supposed To Be

  Source: therumpus.net

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Differences, That One Person, Personal Power

  "Dance Dance Revolution". Interview with Gary Moskowitz, www.motherjones.com. November 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Rap, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I was an avowed professional revolutionary by the time I was 15.

  Boots Riley

  Revolutionary

  Source: therumpus.net

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Hurt, Reality, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Father, Thinking, Ideas

  "Boots Riley Is Sorry to Bother You". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. January 3, 2011.

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Needs, Done, Feels

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Song, Writing, Want

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• I always write knowing that people will hear it, but also hoping they'll see it. So a lot of times I make lyrical decisions based on what looks better. Also I write based on what I saw for a video. I obsess over lyrics in the hopes that they'll endure in different ways. I'm very precious about it.

  Boots Riley

  Writing, People, Decision

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• What first got me involved in politics was being 14, and a youth organizer comes to my house with a van full of 14 year old girls. "Hey, you want to go to the beach with us? But first we're going to go support the cannery workers' strike in Watsonville."

  Boots Riley

  Girl, Beach, Years

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Oakland, Ideas, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• I thought there were too many songs about people's personal lives.

  Boots Riley

  Song, People, Personal Life

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• When I was five years old, me and my cousin got into a fistfight because when "That's the Way (I Like It)" came on the radio, he said, "That's my song," and I said, "No, that's my song."

  Boots Riley

  Song, Cousin, Years

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• In high school, everybody rapped. You just pounded on the table.

  Boots Riley

  School, High School, Tables

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• People give out compliments because it's polite.

  Boots Riley

  People, Giving, Compliment

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Song, Art, Taken

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Boots Riley

  Song, Writing, Mean

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• 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 Riley

  Ideas, People, Trying

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• It's usually important to me to get my idea out first because a lot of times my ideas will seem weird to musicians.

  Boots Riley

  Ideas, Important, Musician

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• A lot of people heard about gin and juice for the first time from Snoop Dogg, but it was nothing new in rap music, and it was nothing new in the black community.

  Boots Riley

  Rap, People, Community

  Source: therumpus.net

  12 Copy quote

• When my daughter was born, that was the first time I cried from happiness.

  Boots Riley

  Daughter, Firsts, Born

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I think there's something your hormones do that makes a chemical change in the way you think.

  Boots Riley

  Thinking, Way, Chemicals

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

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