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

In Chile, they had penas, where the community would come together to sing and plan how they were going to overthrow the government. There's a real hopefulness in that community style of organizing.

A record is a commodity, but so is a hamburger. Just because I work at McDonald's doesn't mean I reap the benefits of that commodity. That's the reality with most artists in the record industry: They're getting paid a subsistence wage so they can keep producing a commodity for the record label.

I want to fight the McCarthyist state that's developing in this country so my kids won't live in a world where people are afraid to speak out.

I've gotten stopped for reckless eyeballing, for staring too hard. These officers think they're Tarzan and this is a jungle, that all the animals need to be tamed.

One time, someone came up to me and said, 'I know so-and-so. They're a professor at Harvard. They're a big fan of your work.' But that doesn't impress me more than any other people feeling that way.

I don't need to be validated by academia, because that presupposes that academia is a pure endeavor and not guided by market forces, which is not the case.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, in general, by putting this idea out there that the one percent is leeching off the 99 percent, is making a new discussion, making people figure out how to withhold their labor and come and put their issues on the table with the ruling class all over the country and all over the world.

The point is, is that when you elect a politician, it has nothing to do with their personality. Politicians perform a function, a role in government. And the role of city government is not one that serves the people, unless the people make them do what the people want.