Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.

In our country there's never been a successful progressive struggle that did not have a soundtrack, whether it was the civil rights movement, workers' rights movement, women's rights movement. There's got to be songs at the barricades, and those are the kinds of songs that I try to write.

Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn’t understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.

I came late to the genre of folk music.

I literally integrated the small town of Libertyville, Illinois. I was the first person of color to reside within its borders.

My parents met in Kenya. My father is African, is Kenyan. The Kenyan side of my family was involved in the anticolonial movement.

We have power not just with our voices, but we have economic power in what we do for a living, too.