Death to the pigs is my basic statement.

I just make music based on what I believe.

The Coup does not support the American flag.

People give out compliments because it's polite.

No one has a copyright on working-class struggles.

The tech world is not a new phenomenon; it's a new era.

You can't co-opt labor issues if you are in the working class.

The United States is going to keep on with its imperialist ways.

I was an avowed professional revolutionary by the time I was 15.

In high school, everybody rapped. You just pounded on the table.

I think most people would love for us to be a socialist society.

I thought there were too many songs about people's personal lives.

I'm not a classically trained composer, and I can't sing very well.

I'm not trying to make a speech on CD because who wants to buy that?

Making movies seemed so impossible as far as getting my ideas funded.

The opportunism of electoral politics makes people lie to each other.

When my daughter was born, that was the first time I cried from happiness.

I listen to everything from The Cure and The Clash to Prince and George Clinton.

If we created a society based on love, it would be a society without exploitation.

Many people feel that unions aren't militant enough for them and don't do anything.

I try to find creative ways to put ideas out to make the ground fertile for organizers.

The crux of our power isn't only in our voice. It is in our economic function in society.

If people come to a record store, and they can't find your album, they buy something else.

'Redistributing the wealth' - that phrase gets used so much that you almost get numb to it.

I think there's something your hormones do that makes a chemical change in the way you think.

This idea of 'cool capitalism' is still capitalism. It doesn't matter if Elon Musk quotes Nas.

Sometimes my influences are really on my sleeve. So I just make sure to wear a lot of sleeves.

If I want to get my ideas out, I have to be involved in the mechanism that the world is ran by.

Any collective action is made up of individuals who one day decided not to sit and watch anymore.

What I wanted to do is put forth, musically, the idea that there's hope that we can change the system.

Oakland has always had artists attempting to define the immense beauty and ridiculousness around them.

I wanted to be part of changing the world. I don't want to just stand by and watch it be however it is.

I chose to do art in the way I always do it, which is with all the crazy contradictions of life in there.

Until we can democratically control the wealth that is created from our labor, there isn't real democracy.

Every progressive movement in U.S. history has been portrayed negatively by the media at the time it happened.

I've never really subscribed to the theory that repression breeds rebellion. I don't think that's really true.

The Obama campaign decimated the newly regenerated anti-war movement in 2008. And he definitely isn't anti-war.

Rarely, someone comes around that is influenced by so many things but is looking for a new way to do something.

It's usually important to me to get my idea out first because a lot of times my ideas will seem weird to musicians.

There's a very thin line between rock and funk. Funk is like a dirtier blues, and so is rock. They're close cousins.

A lot of organizers tell me that while they are making signs or doing whatever they do, they are listening to the Coup.

All of a sudden it became that hip hop didn't used to be about partying; hip hop used to be about putting out a message.

Sometimes it takes time to get into what ideas actually mean to you. Even when you're not writing a song, it's like that.

A lot of us don't get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.

A lot of us don’t get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.

I used to be mad, at first, that I couldn't sound like Ice Cube. And I think that was probably one of the best things for me.

A lot of what we say and do are regurgitated things that have to do with what we think we're supposed to be saying and doing.

I think that in order to make revolution, you need to make reforms, but you should make these reforms with revolution in mind.

I am a person who always feels like I am not doing the right thing because there's always so many things that need to get done.

The truth is, every movie is a message movie. It's just that most movies have messages that are in lock step with the status quo.

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