Andre Holland Quotes

In our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things. Why not have something positive and stamp it with blackness?

The fact that we elected Obama was a sign that the black struggle inherent in the blues and so much of the music I have loved can triumph.

Historically, art and music and writing and film have been one of the only tools that is effective against tyranny.

In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.

It's fair to say that white America wouldn't have elected an African-American president without the integrating effect of black music - from Louis Armstrong to hip-hop - and black drama and fiction, commercial as much as 'serious.'

I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

I think that Hiphop should be a pulpit for the people.

I'd like to see people pay attention to the science of hip hop. The knowledge part, the political side of what hip hop could do, or where hip hop is gonna go. I always say it's gonna become universal as we become a galactic union.

Music is always a commentary on society.

The African-American experience is one of the most important threads in the American tapestry.

I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.

If you see something is going wrong within politics and the world today, then some Hip Hop artist is gonna come along and get straight with it. If they think that there's a lot of racism going on then there's another Hip Hop artist who's gonna come out and speak their mind.

Soul lyrics, soul music came at about the same time as the civil rights movement, and it's very possible that one influenced the other.

The great thing about a culture is that once you really get it going, it evolves on its own. It's self-organizing. It's dynamic. It just feeds on itself.

Black culture is a fight. We want to hold on to what we are, but sometimes the things that we are can be totally negative. You have to think: can't we try something new and not be seen as suspect?

I don't think I'm really so unique. If every black person looked at their life they would quickly discover that they have been influenced by every type of music prevalent in America.

It was a particularly interesting and exciting time, and the European political and artistic establishment was turned on by the Civil Rights Movement and the artistic revolution that was becoming a part of jazz.

I try to use my music to move these people to act.

Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.

I'm an old fan of the Negro spirituals.

It's important for me, politically, to see that theater isn't just about the powerful.

Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it's all African-American music.

It's my luck to be at the frontier of what looks to be a resurrection of roots music on the international scene. That's really what reggae music is about: that voice against oppression and struggle.

These young people have to know that Dr. King and others made it possible for them to do their Hip Hopping.