Top 100 Michael Franti Quotes
#1. In Jamaica, the music is recorded for the sound system, not the iPod. It's about experiencing music together, with other people.
Michael Franti
#2. I hope I inspire people to dream bigger than what they are living, but a dream within their reach.
Michael Franti
#3. I was adopted when I was a baby. My mother carried me for nine months and she held me for one hour, and didn't see me again.
Michael Franti
#4. When I first started, my songs were the politics of anger. As I got older and hopefully wiser, I wanted to be part of the politics of answers.
Michael Franti
#5. When many little people in many little places do many little things, then the whole world changes.
Michael Franti
#7. I try to use the attention that I get to help and to serve, and that's really what I'd see as my work - to serve my community, serve the planet, serve my family. And I think a celebrity is someone who draws the attention on themselves, and then it kind of stops there.
Michael Franti
#8. Music is sunshine. Like sunshine, music is a powerful force that can instantly and almost chemically change your entire mood. Music gives us new energy and a stronger sense of purpose.
Michael Franti
#9. Music has the power to bring people together like no other art form.
Michael Franti
#10. 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.
Michael Franti
#11. Like sunshine, music is a powerful force that can instantly and almost chemically change your entire mood.
Michael Franti
#12. I believe that through positive thoughts, speech, action and attitudes, we change things for the better.
Michael Franti
#13. When I first started out, I thought it was enough to make an angry song that pointed out the problems of the world.
Michael Franti
#15. My mother and father took me in and provided everything for me - the love, nurturing, basic necessities - to give me the space to grow wings, so that when I went out into the world, I could fly.
Michael Franti
#16. Music is also one of the great heart openers. Sometimes, you hear the lyrics of a song and you dance, laugh, smile, or perhaps even cry.
Michael Franti
#17. Every bit of land is a Holy land, and every drop of water is Holy water, and every single child is a son or a daughter of the one Earth mama, and the one Earth papa.
Michael Franti
#18. When someone can't afford to wear shoes, it's not just about them not having shoes on that day. It's about a cycle of poverty that exists within their community.
Michael Franti
#19. After a show, I'll get the 16-year-old white kid whose lip is pierced, his head is shaved and his parents hate him, and the young gangster from the screwed-up 'hood, and they say that now they realize there's someone out there who thinks like they do.
Michael Franti
#21. I don't know if it's so grand that I can change the entire world, but I know that I can help one person. So that's the goal.
Michael Franti
#22. Life is too short to make just one decision, music is too loud for just one station, love is too big for just one nation, and God is too big for just one religion!
Michael Franti
#23. We would play songs live on stage, and then we'd watch their reaction we were receiving immediately, if people were dancing and singing along. If they weren't, then we'd go into the dressing rooms of the different NBA teams that we were playing in their arenas, and we'd change the songs right there.
Michael Franti
#24. I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.
Michael Franti
#25. All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.
Michael Franti
#26. Recording in Jamaica is like nothing else. The studios are always closed in America. But in Jamaica, the studio doors are wide open, and there's music blasting out in the street. You can see the reaction of people immediately.
Michael Franti
#27. We have a saying in my house, my kids and my girlfriend. We say, 'Be your best for the greater good, and rock out wherever you are.'
Michael Franti
#28. It's that transformative nature of love and music and yoga that really inspires me.
Michael Franti
#29. Music gets us in touch with our emotions in a way that's more intimate than any other art form.
Michael Franti
#30. The main thing is to be myself. What I mean by that is, to be honest when called upon to express your feelings. The other thing is - maybe this should come first - to be a good listener. To close your mouth and to listen, and to be able to echo back what your partner says to you.
Michael Franti
#31. I think that fear comes about when there's things in the world that we want to change, things we're scared or angry about, and we can't change them, and so we become fearful; we develop anxiety.
Michael Franti
#32. Music was a central part of my childhood because my mother played organ and piano in the church, and that meant all us kids had to be in the church choir.
Michael Franti
#33. The human interest, and the natural interest, and the spiritual interest of this planet need to begin to take a priority over the corporate interest, the military interest, and the materialistic interests.
Michael Franti
#34. Everybody's opinion is equally valid, and I feel like everybody should have an opportunity to speak out, and everyone should have the courage to speak out.
Michael Franti
#35. The music industry has been hijacked by corporate interests, but the way music affects people and resonates with them hasn't changed.
Michael Franti
#36. I went to Iraq because I wanted to see what one year of occupation had done to Iraqi society, and I went to the West Bank and Gaza Strip because I wanted to see what three generations of occupation had done to Palestinian society. I found a lot more hopelessness and despair in Palestine.
Michael Franti
#37. When we all see justice, then we'll all see peace!
Michael Franti
#39. You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it into peace. Power to the peaceful.
Michael Franti
#40. History shows that Americans believe in doing the right thing.
Michael Franti
#41. It was hard for me, as a father, to imagine going through what my birth mom went through, to raise a child inside of her for nine months, and then have to say goodbye. And so it's hard for me to understand that pain and that process.
Michael Franti
#42. To sit back and say, 'Oh, we're going to let the government do whatever they want, right or wrong,' is giving up.
Michael Franti
#43. Not all artists have a responsibility to be socially or politically aware, but they do have a responsibility to make great art. They have to find some truth and put that in their music.
Michael Franti
#45. People underestimate the hip-hop audience and the capacity to understand politics when it's part of music.
Michael Franti
#46. It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue whether we take care of the environment. That should be a human issue.
Michael Franti
#47. You say you're a Christian, cause God made you, you say you're a Muslim cause God made you, you say you're a Hindu and the next man a Jew, but then we all kill each other cause God told us to? Naw!
Michael Franti
#48. You learn a lot when you're barefoot. The first thing is every step you take is different.
Michael Franti
#49. People ask me a lot, 'what can one person do,' and I say 'I'm not really sure what one person can due except come together with other people.
Michael Franti
#50. The personal revolution is far more difficult, and is the first step in any revolution.
Michael Franti
#51. The more places I go to, the more I realize I understand so little about the world.
Michael Franti
#52. One of the things I love about yoga is that it brings you into the present moment. You aren't worried about what will happen tomorrow and you aren't thinking about what happened yesterday. It's about opening your heart and living from your heart.
Michael Franti
#53. I always identified with that feeling of being an underdog. So I always was looking to connect with and meet people from other cultures, to experience people living a different life that I am.
Michael Franti
#54. I believe that in order to tackle the big issues of the world today, like environmental issues, we need everybody's involvement. We need the resources of the corporate world. We need the cooperation of governments. We need the wisdom of indigenous people.
Michael Franti
#55. My mother birthed three children and she adopted myself and another African-American son. My adoptive parents were Finnish. I grew up in a white picket neighborhood.
Michael Franti
#57. When you're in Jamaica, unless you're in a tourist spot, you don't hear Bob Marley; you mostly hear dance hall music.
Michael Franti
#58. Having personal things in balance is more important than the other.
Michael Franti
#59. It doesn't matter if you're black, white, gay, straight, come from different countries, different language ... every single person is significant and is meaningful.
Michael Franti
#60. In the '80s, Ronald Reagan inspired me to become politicized, because I grew up in that era when everything I cared about was under attack.
Michael Franti
#61. Jamaica's a country of great dichotomy. On the one hand you have a tourist industry with great beaches and resorts, but on the other you have such great poverty and the violence that goes along with that.
Michael Franti
#62. My goal has not ever been to change minds, my goal is to open minds.
Michael Franti
#63. I took a trip in 2004, a year after the war started in Iraq. I played music on the streets of Baghdad for Iraqi civilians. I'd also play for U.S. soldiers at night when they were off duty in the bars. Then I would talk to people, and I would film them and ask them about their life and the conflict.
Michael Franti
#64. I think of love as an action. Finding something that's outside of yourself, to serve someone else's soul, helping to ignite someone else's spirit, to bring about ease of heart and joy, serenity in somebody else.
Michael Franti
#65. I really believe that, as an artist, my opportunity to help to bring about awakening is one that should come from a personal process that someone has, and not from me telling somebody that this is the way it is.
Michael Franti
#66. The corporate media is there to push the agenda of the sponsors, and many of those sponsors are weapons manufacturers. So it stands to reason that you won't get a diversity of opinions on television.
Michael Franti
#67. I'm always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.
Michael Franti
#68. It ain't about who ya love, it's all about do ya love.
Michael Franti
#69. A lot of times we look at the whole world and think, 'it's so daunting, how can we change the whole world?' and you don't need to do that, what you need to do is change your world a little bit, and see if you can, through example, inspire others to do the same thing.
Michael Franti
#72. I went to the University of San Francisco on an athletic scholarship. I didn't study in high school. I was just there to get by and to play basketball. But a funny thing happened to me when I got to college. I got challenged by the work and the professors.
Michael Franti
#73. I think my soul is intact, but my methods of reaching people are completely different.
Michael Franti
#74. Today we are in a war against war - music is our power.
Michael Franti
#75. My house was filled with music. We had a piano, and my brothers and sisters played instruments. Even though I was around it, I played basketball.
Michael Franti
#76. The U.S. has historically been the world's largest contributor to climate change.
Michael Franti
#77. The rap community has been singled out as more homophobic than other groups, but I don't think that's right. It's homophobic, all right, but no more so than the heavy-metal community or the Hollywood community or any other community.
Michael Franti
#78. I really encourage people to travel so we can see how the rest of the world views our country. That's really important. Secondly, as artists, activists, and citizens who vote, we have to begin to vote from our heart.
Michael Franti
#79. Don't fear the nighttime, cause the monsters know that you're divine. Don't fear the sunshine, cause everything's better in the summertime
Michael Franti
#80. Johnny Cash was a rebel, not only just in the musical sense, but he was somebody who was for the people, and an advocate for labor, for workers, for prisoners, people who have been trapped by the criminal justice system.
Michael Franti
#81. I could be really sad and I start to cry; I feel alive then. I could be at a concert and I throw my hands up in the air and I feel elation; I feel alive then.
Michael Franti
#82. Don't settle for something that's not great. Don't feel like having a relationship that is not serving your needs is more important than having a relationship with yourself.
Michael Franti
#83. Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation ...
Michael Franti
#84. Our country was founded on immigration. We are all occupying Native American land here. At what point do we say 'It's our land, and nobody else can come here.'
Michael Franti
#85. I don't know if music can change the world overnight but I know that music can help someone make it through a difficult night.
Michael Franti
#86. San Francisco has always been a haven for misfits and weirdos. I'm both of those, which is why I came here.
Michael Franti
#87. Be as radiant as the sun, as healing as the rain, as generous as a tree.
Michael Franti
#88. Every single soul is a poem, written on the back of God's hand
Michael Franti
#89. We only have X amount of days and time on this planet - how am I going to spend that time? The way that I want to spend it is caring about the people that I love the most, and fighting to make the world a more livable place for everybody.
Michael Franti
#90. I think the main thing I would say is, don't settle. Don't settle for something that's not great.
Michael Franti
#91. It really is a strange time we're living in, when saying 'Don't kill people' is considered a radical point of view.
Michael Franti
#92. The most difficult part for me is feeling connected to the people that I love but always being on the go to different places.
Michael Franti
#93. My yoga practice, I do it because when I get on my mat, I know I'm going to be transformed. I know that whatever stresses are in my life or whatever worries I have or whatever monkey mind is happening for me, when I get off the mat, I'm going to be transformed.
Michael Franti
#94. My music is part of the quest I have to find new ways of telling stories, and also, I want to inspire people.
Michael Franti
#95. No life's worth more than any other, no sister worth less than any brother.
Michael Franti
#96. Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good.
Michael Franti
#97. Investing now in safe-guarding people by helping them to adapt to climate change, will help save money and lives while building resilience.
Michael Franti
#98. I drive a hybrid. It's a Ford Escape. That's my only car.
Michael Franti
#99. The times when I feel not alive is when I feel stifled, when I feel like the emotion that's in me is not coming out. I'm too busy, too hectic. I'm serving my iPhone more than my spirit. Those are the times I feel bad.
Michael Franti
#100. I think that the transformative nature of love is why we are so drawn to it.
Michael Franti
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