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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

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Michael Franti
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: April 21
Composer
Guitarist
Peace Activist
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Oakland
California
Would
Playing
Iraq
Think
Happy
Laugh
Thinking
War
Angry
Clap
People
Song
Importance
Gaza
Music
Dance
Strip
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Songs
Protest
Really
Streets
Israel
Make
Laughing
Sing

More quotes by Michael Franti

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The hardest part about what I do, the most vulnerable place is my relationship with my family and Sara, my amazing partner, because I'm leaving a lot. And as a touring artist, I'm constantly coming and going, but also when I'm at home, my studio's at home. I'm leaving to go into a music world in my head.
Michael Franti
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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.
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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.
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If the first casualty of war is innocence, then perhaps with each bullet fired, bomb detonated, leader overthrown, wall built, economy destroyed and family member killed, we are not creating goodwill and harmony, but rather another child who believes violence is the only means to bring about change in the world.
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My goal has not ever been to change minds, my goal is to open minds.
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Love is the action of soul satisfaction.
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The music industry has been hijacked by corporate interests, but the way music affects people and resonates with them hasn't changed.
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Don't fear the night time, Because the monsters know that you're divine. And don't fear the sunshine, Because everything is better in the summer time...
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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.
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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.
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It's also hard for me to understand growing up not knowing where I came from. I searched for my parents - I started when I was twenty I found both my mother and my father when I was twenty-two. Trying to catch up on twenty-two years that we can never get back, trying to reconcile that - that's a hard thing for me.
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It doesnt matter if youre black, white, gay, straight, come from different countries, different language... every single person is significant and is meaningful.
Michael Franti
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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.
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The more I see, the less I know.
Michael Franti
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Sometimes, I feel like I can do anything, and, sometimes, I'm so alive, sometimes, I feel like I could zoom across the sky and, sometimes, I wanna cry.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Michael Franti
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I have a passion to make a difference in the world. And that difference can be just making the fans at my show leave with a smile on their face and feeling uplifted.
Michael Franti
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Every single soul is a poem.
Michael Franti