America is off-the-hook gay. I will not go all Ann Coulter on you and say, 'Our gays are better than their gays,' but as far as countries go, we are in-your-face gay.

Americans are poorly served by their media, you know, for the war machine and propaganda machine and the global empire and they're poorly served by what they are being told is representative government.

I see violence in myself; I've done some pretty violent things in my lifetime and I've been around some pretty severe violence all the way up to homicide.

My first introduction to African music was by my mother, who bought the 'Pata Pata' album by the great Miriam Makeba when it came out. Now that is an album. What a voice.

Young, gay and stuck in Arkansas? Sounds like a horror flick.

Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor.

For me, jazz will always be the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.