America .. the international Jekyll and Hyde ... the land of a thousand disguises, sneaks up on you but rarely surprises

My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words.

America .. the international Jekyll and Hyde ... the land of a thousand disguises, sneaks up on you but rarely surprises

I don't mind being criticized. I enjoy being criticized personally, not by rumor.

I was one of the first three black students to go to an all-white school in Tennessee.

I've always had questions about what it meant to be a protester, to be in the minority. Are the people who are trying to find peace, who are trying to have the Constitution apply to everybody, are they really the radicals? We're not protesting from the outside. We're inside.

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.