I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I mean, there's a hell of a lot of grounds for protest, but you don't do it through music.
Other than Green Day, we haven't had a lot of protest music over the past few decades.
Protest is patriotic. Since the beginning of musical time, American singers and songwriters have used their talent and bully pulpits to show us America's strengths and shortcomings.
Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.
You can't just sit around and make protest albums all your life; eventually it comes to the point where you have to do something.
I don't find music being less important than, like, politics.
It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs.
Hip hop is the strongest form of protest there is, and it doesn't always have to be a violent protest. It can be romantic, also. When you listen to Kanye West's 'Street Lights' for example, there's romance, there's pain - you feel the essence. I get the same thing from Drake and 2 Chainz.
Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the importance of happy music.
In America, there's more of the question, should music be political or should it just be for entertainment purposes, whereas around the world that's not even an issue. I think people just assume that music should be everything.
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