I think hip-hop can be prophetic and progressive, and at the same time, the dominant forms tend to be homophobic, misogynistic and something that we need to critically call into question.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

Our problem is that we don't have enough people in America, including black people, who are progressive and willing to sacrifice their popularity in order to tell the truth.

Does he have a double standard for black critics as opposed to white critics?

I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys.

The wonderful thing about the black church for me is that it forces you to come to terms with the centrality of love in the world.

When we think of globalization we are thinking in part of structures and institutions that have been developed over time and that have allowed us to become more interdependent and interrelated. But the development, the extraordinary development, of those structures and institutions has not fundamentally transformed our humanity. We are still those animals with fears and anxieties and insecurities in the face of death and dread and disappointment and disease.