Boots Riley

“I've never really subscribed to the theory that repression breeds rebellion. I don't think that's really true.”

“I just look at music as a retreat from organizing. It's like a tug-of-war with me. Music can be effective, but it's not any good if there isn't a grass-roots movement going on to support it.”

“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.”

“Making movies seemed so impossible as far as getting my ideas funded.”

“I'm not a classically trained composer, and I can't sing very well.”

“Trying to get somebody to read your script and you're a musician? That's the last person whose script you're gonna read!”

“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.”

“I grew up around politics. I organized my first campaign when I was 14, a walk-out in my high school to protest the year-round school schedule.”

“One time, someone came up to me and said, 'I know so-and-so. They're a professor at Harvard. They're a big fan of your work.' But that doesn't impress me more than any other people feeling that way.”

“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.”

“The folks that are suggesting Occupy move to electoral politics are ignoring history, ignoring what actually creates change. People get involved in electoral politics because they think there is no movement that can create change.”

“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.”

“If we created a society based on love, it would be a society without exploitation.”

“I was actually really good at telemarketing.”

“The Box would not play 'Takin' These' because we had a scene where we were taking furniture out of Rockefeller's mansion and giving the stuff out on the street for free.”

“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.”

“A record is a commodity, but so is a hamburger. Just because I work at McDonald's doesn't mean I reap the benefits of that commodity. That's the reality with most artists in the record industry: They're getting paid a subsistence wage so they can keep producing a commodity for the record label.”

“There's this zeitgeist happening, and people are more open to 'Sorry to Bother You' being a hit with 'Get Out' being out there. But that zeitgeist is also happening because of the movements going back to Occupy and Black Lives Matter. Usually, film is years behind. It just so happens that, this time, everything is lining up.”

“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.”

“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.”