Other than Green Day, we haven't had a lot of protest music over the past few decades.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.
I mean, there's a hell of a lot of grounds for protest, but you don't do it through music.
Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.
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.
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.
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.
More and more people are finally realizing that in the heart of America, there's all this incredible music that wasn't widely heard before because it wasn't in the interest of those who feel they have to control the taste of the wider public.
I think popular music in this country is one of the few things in the twentieth century that have made giant strides in reverse.
The nice thing about a protest song is that it takes the complaint, the fussing, the finger-pointing, and gives it an added component of sociable harmony.
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