Michael Franti People Quotations

Music has the power to bring people together like no other art form.

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.

I hope I inspire people to dream bigger than what they are living, but a dream within their reach.

All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.

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.

Traveling to the Middle East and playing music for people on the street, for soldiers, for people in hospitals, and for people who lost their homes, and seeing people open up through the experience of music really restored my faith in music, in art, and in culture to change things.

With all the people hating and hurting each other, I don't understand how people could get upset about people of the same sex caring for each other.

People worry that gas prices are high and how they are affecting their pocket book. But they want to know about renewable energy. People are really starting to question things, and that's made people look to the future in a positive way.

I have a desire that I want to make people feel happy through my music. I'm always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.

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.

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.

People underestimate the hip-hop audience and the capacity to understand politics when it's part of music.

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.

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.

I think my soul is intact, but my methods of reaching people are completely different.

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.

Investing now in safe-guarding people by helping them to adapt to climate change, will help save money and lives while building resilience.

There are so many things to be worried about, and I wanted to make a record that people could put on, and it would lift them up the way the sun did for me each day.

We don't have to be good, you know? No one's telling us that we have to do good things, but we do them because we know it makes other people feel good and it makes us feel good.

Whenever people go out of their way to help other people - there's power and beauty in our diversity.

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.

The music industry has been hijacked by corporate interests, but the way music affects people and resonates with them hasn't changed.

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.

The most difficult part for me is feeling connected to the people that I love but always being on the go to different places.

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.

I've never really been into flags of any kind, cause flags can bring people together, but they always bring people together against other people, and I don't really consider myself to be a patriot in the sense that I say, 'okay, this is my nation,' I consider myself to be a child of this whole planet.

When many little people in many little places do many little things, then the whole world changes.

All my songs are different, but from the overall experience, I want people to sense that they can overcome and move through difficult times and find strength in my music. Maybe it's a song that makes them cry and move through something else.