A Quote by Boots Riley

I lived in Detroit until I was six. My older sister was living with us, and she listened to the Ohio Players and Stevie Wonder, so I grew up listening to stuff like that.
I grew up in the '70s, and I hear in my own stuff a lot of what I grew up listening to, which is to say I hear a lot of Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder.
I grew up listening to pop music with my dad in the car, and we'd just listen to Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Earth Wind & Fire, KC and the Sunshine Band - all that good stuff. So to see it snaking its way back around again is really exciting, and I love listening to the radio.
Outside of my parents, it's my older sister, Ngum. She lives with me in Detroit and helps me with my day-to-day stuff. She's somebody I've always looked up to. When she was leaving high school and going to college, I wanted to follow in her footsteps.
You always draw from your roots. I'm influenced by everything I hear and see, and that includes music today, but obviously I go back to my early influences: Stevie Wonder, Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire, Ohio Players, Average White Band. Those kind of artists are what I look to. When I hear that stuff on the radio, I turn it up!
My parents were real classic rock freaks, so I heard a lot of Zeppelin, Stones, Hendrix stuff. Thankfully, they were also into lots of old soul, too, so we listened to Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire and War. I was so isolated where I grew up (a small town in Pennsylvania) that there was literally no culture.
I was the youngest of six kids, and my brothers and sisters were kind of a lot older than me. And the one sister that was, like, in a close age range - she was five years older than me. She was my closest sister in age, and she was a loser.
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents are really right wingers. My dad watches, like, five or six hours of 'Fox News' every day and stuff like that.
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents are really right wingers. My dad watches, like, five or six hours of Fox News every day and stuff like that.
I grew up listening to country music. I got into traditional stuff later, but I listened to the commercial stuff of the '90s, especially the women who were so strong, like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kathy Mattea. It's a great art form.
I grew up listening to the greats of the '80s and, thanks to my parents, the '70s - the Doobie Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie.
Most of the music I've listened to or grew up listening to - a lot of it at least - is instrumental stuff.
'Master Blaster,' by Stevie Wonder, is up-tempo and fun, like Stevie himself. Stevie's always making jokes; he really knows how to put people at ease. He's one of my inspirations, as a musician and a person.
I grew in the inner city, listening to Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, James Brown, The Commodores - lots of soul music.
I can't ignore what I grew up listening to. My parents used to listen to Michael Jackson non-stop. They used to listen to Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder.
My mom really let us do our own thing and play with different trends, and my sister was a little older, so she had all the beauty tricks. I would stuff things like rolled-up toilet paper into my hair to get volume, or do the reverse, and I'd lie on my back, and she'd use an actual iron to straighten it.
Stevie Wonder doing [carpool karaoke] it was a massive turning point because he's Stevie Wonder. Like, there's no one else in the world who can go, I don't really want to do it. And you go oh, so it's good enough for Stevie Wonder but it's not good enough for you?
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