Michael Franti

“All my songs are different, but from the overall experience, I want people to sense that they can overcome and move through difficult times and find strength in my music. Maybe it's a song that makes them cry and move through something else.”

“Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the importance of happy music.”

“The world can't have a global solution to climate change with U.S. action alone; and the world can't have a global solution without U.S. action.”

“I'm always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.”

“My music is part of the quest I have to find new ways of telling stories, and also, I want to inspire people.”

“To sit back and say, 'Oh, we're going to let the government do whatever they want, right or wrong,' is giving up.”

“There are so many things to be worried about, and I wanted to make a record that people could put on, and it would lift them up the way the sun did for me each day.”

“You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it into peace. Power to the peaceful.”

“Music has the power to bring people together like no other art form.”

“I think that fear comes about when there's things in the world that we want to change, things we're scared or angry about, and we can't change them, and so we become fearful; we develop anxiety.”

“I hope I inspire people to dream bigger than what they are living, but a dream within their reach.”

“My usual day is I get up around 11 o'clock and do yoga and then eat afterwards. Then I have sound check and play soccer and do running with the guys in the band after sound check, and then do the show and eat dinner after the show and usually get to bed around 3 o'clock by the time we get everybody on the bus and get rolling.”

“After a show, I'll get the 16-year-old white kid whose lip is pierced, his head is shaved and his parents hate him, and the young gangster from the screwed-up 'hood, and they say that now they realize there's someone out there who thinks like they do.”

“People worry that gas prices are high and how they are affecting their pocket book. But they want to know about renewable energy. People are really starting to question things, and that's made people look to the future in a positive way.”

“History shows that Americans believe in doing the right thing.”

“We have a saying in my house, my kids and my girlfriend. We say, 'Be your best for the greater good, and rock out wherever you are.'”

“Today we are in a war against war - music is our power.”

“My mother birthed three children and she adopted myself and another African-American son. My adoptive parents were Finnish. I grew up in a white picket neighborhood.”

“I think my soul is intact, but my methods of reaching people are completely different.”

“Recording in Jamaica is like nothing else. The studios are always closed in America. But in Jamaica, the studio doors are wide open, and there's music blasting out in the street. You can see the reaction of people immediately.”