The truth is that in this country you here you're more likely to be harassed, hurt, or killed if you're a minister speaking about progress for Black people than if you are a sure enough revolutionary.

I am honestly not sure how capable I am of love. And I'm not sure why.

I find it not just strange but almost ridiculous that people could take a song like the one I was doing and interpret it is corroding anything. Folks have the feeling that oftentimes if you don't talk about something it will go away.

We understand what the difference is between what we understand and what the community understands about what we're doing because they have supported us long enough for me to stay out here, while other people who are doing other things have not. A lot of people have trouble pinning down what it is we do and how. But we don't have any trouble with that. As long as that's their problem, it's their problem.

I cannot afford to watch Fox News.

The way you get to know yourself is by the expressions on other people's faces, because that's the only thing that you can see, unless you carry a mirror about.

Paul Robeson once said that the artist has the responsibility to either help liberate the community or further oppress it. And I think that when Eldridge Cleaver wrote it down it was interpreted as his, but there's a history of people saying things of that nature and meaning it. And what I do is in that tradition, in that mode.