"I really make an effort to live according to my word. That doesn't mean that I am exactly like in my songs." — Ben Harper

Ben Harper : "It's important that that voice of peace always exist, in every generation. Because sometimes peace seems like the underdog. I don't know why, and I don't know how humanity has worked itself into this corner. Peace is now something that is taken far less serious than violence. Violence has almost become human nature, and peacefulness has almost become a myth."

"Aren't we better than that? To buy into such a violent element... of our species? We split an atom, we got all this computer technology, and we can't even get along? What good is it if we can't even communicate and coexist peacefully? All that advancement and all that technology means nothing if we can't live in peace, really. So the greatest technological advancement in the world is peace! All these scientists, they don't impress me... goin' to Mars. Why go to Mars and fuck Mars up? Ya know what I mean? Why go to Mars and do that? You gonna treat Mars like we treat the Earth? Come on. We need to get it together here... spend the money gettin' it together here... before we spend all that money goin' to destroy another place. It doesn't make any sense to me. So all these scientists, if they want to impress me personally they'll find some way to tap into that peaceful vibration and spread that. That's technology to me! Computers and faxes and cell phones and stuff... it's great (shrugs)... But it doesn't impress me like peace does. And I may sound ridiculous man! Cause when a man comes and talks about peace people... it's so far apart... it seems like we are so far separated from that consciousness people think - Awhh, there's Ben Harper, he's talkin' about peace or somethin'. And it's not often I talk about it publicly because again, it's a fragile, fragile subject. But you just gotta keep talkin' about it." (transcript by Gavin Conaty - www.benharper.net)

"The most amazing thing about Martin Luther King was that he exuded peace, it emanated from him, from his whole being, from his slightest look, his slightest gesture. When you're in that place, you can move forward. He's THE man, one of the most nonviolent people the world has ever seen; everything was prayer for him, and that's exactly the road we have to take."

"I have Indian blood in me : I'm Cherokee on my paternal grandmother's side. I know what it means to feel oppressed -- my ancestors were exterminated -- and yet, to me, nothing justifies violence. I belong to a race forgotten by history. They never talked about my people at school. At home I read dozens of books on Indians, and I cried when I learned the truth. So I have every reason for hating and yet, it's stronger than I am: love wins the day..."

"When you send out a positive vibration, it comes back to you tenfold."

Ben Harper : "I don't like religion, I just love God. Religion is often an insult to God. Spirit is the fulfillment of being, while religion divides humanity and I don't want to support that."

"You see me praying on the cover of Fight For Your Mind because I pray every day. If you don't pray, you can't really be humble. I'm speaking for myself, it's a very personal statement that comes from the heart.
You don't need to kneel in order to pray, you can pray standing up, but you have to get down on your knees to give thanks, to humble yourself before God and the Earth. Humility is very important. I get on my knees to express my gratitude for each moment of my life, each breath that I take, for my abilities."

"The God I am speaking about is Creation. It's a force moving on the Earth. It's the creator of Heaven and Earth, the King of the angels and the Father of light. It's the Father in the Gospels, it's nature, trees and valleys... Everything that comes from the earth.
I know that one must have faith in a spirit greater than a single individual. I know that we have to learn to give instead of taking. I know that each person must be worthy of what he asks for. You have to know how to respect others.
I dedicate my life with faith and love to the Great All that desires only peace and goodness but I am not religious. At first I wanted to become a priest or pastor, something like that, but then I realized that even if I had this immense love of God in me, it wasn't enough to start a life of abnegation and semi-frustrations..."

"With spirit, a generous heart, and hard work, humanity moves forward. I think that our generation has the potential to do better than the previous ones for the future of humanity.  We have to change our words and our actions. Because unless words, philosophies and beliefs are turned into actions, words are meaningless, philosophy is meaningless."

"Bob Marley was more than just a man... I know it. he represented a living god and I belong to his church. There are different elements in Rastafarianism, different tribes. Once you understand that, you can put it in relation with what you bring from your own system of belief. Then it becomes your own system of belief. That said, I don't pretend that my religion is better than someone else's. I don't see why people are so hard-lined. You can be Jewish and a Buddhist, you can be Rasta and anything else you want to be, this earth wasn't created for us to be forced to believe in one single thing. No one believes in one single thing anyway; there are different beliefs and every person has the right to believe in one or several gods. You can take a bit of the wisdom of all of the existing systems and combine them into one, and establish your personal communication with the All Powerful that way.
Nobody has the right to say that their connection with God is better or more sincere than  other people's, because of what they believe. God doesn't segregate. If you think otherwise you are in the wrong; that's not the divine wisdom talking, it's human pride."

"Having faith also means believing that we lack faith. I know that God loves atheists.  They're Atheists but they still love God, it just means something else for them. Maybe it's a mountain or a tree or the blessing of a sunrise. They have the right to think that that is God."

"Beyond that, it's up to people to find the meaning of these images. If you think about the words of my songs, everything becomes very clear and you understand what I mean. I don't want to give a precise meaning and keep people from thinking for themselves. I don't have to give any other details; people can interpret what I wanted to say for themselves. And anyway the meaning may still be evolving for me."

"I'd rather be damned that to leave my house without turning off the lights, than row trash on the ground, than not to turn off the faucet when I'm brushing my teeth.They're little things that you hav have to become conscious of, they can change the world. A small step for man, a great step for mankind."

Ben Harper : ""Politically, the United States is dead."

"Since I started traveling —in Europe but also across the American continent—  I've gotten a totally different vision of the Black community, its future and perspectives. What I see scares me because slavery still exists. Its terrifying, but I've just realized that Blacks are still slaves. Not the slaves of Whites, but of received ideas, of lies promulgated by television, movies, some of the press. For many White Americans, Blacks are all violent, mean, bitter, they steal and take drugs. In truth dope is used much more by Whites, by middle and upper class people.  Black people don't have the means to pay for cocaine. It's office workers in Los Angeles and New York that shoot up and snort, guys with Mercedes. Nobody talks about that:  there are no TV reports on petit bourgeois druggies. All you hear about is gangs, the Crips and the Bloods. Why be surprised when a little grandma in Missouri looks at me suspiciously when she walks by in the street? She would do better to be wary of her own neighbor, that young lawyer who looks so nice...
In the United States the rich white minority protects the privileges of the rich white minority. The country will only really work when all the social and racial categories are represented: lower-class Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians. That's where all the nation's money and effort should go: to representation, which is the only issue for the people. Here, as elsewhere, the man of the street is not represented. Nobody speaks for him."

"The situation is so depressing that it starts to get frustrating to talk about . It's impossible to have an intelligent conversation about the entropy of a society whose sole constant appears to be the promulgation of chaos."
Photo © Vincent Lignier

"California illustrates the vicissitudes of a country that tends towards the extremes rather than look for harmony across it's differences. You've got a guy living in a mansion who makes 20 million dollars for three weeks work on a movie set, and 3 miles from where he lives, there's a large family living in a trailer home on the margins of society."

"There's a real problem in this city of Los Angeles, between what really goes on and the perception people have of it. The politicians —supported by the media— offer a totally distorted image: On one side the glamour of Hollywood, which really concerns only about 1% of the population, and on the other, the extreme violence infecting bad neighborhoods.  But it's impossible to reduce a city like L.A. to such a black and white vision of things. By spreading fear and paranoia into people's hearts, the media conditions them to go further and further each day from the truth. All we do is to try to avoid further riots while ignoring the population's problems. But indifference has never resolved anything."

"California illustrates the vicissitudes of a country that tends towards the extremes rather than look for harmony across it's differences.  You've got a guy living in a mansion who makes 20 million dollars for three weeks work on a movie set, and 3 miles from where he lives, there's a large family living in a trailer home on the margins of society."
 
"There's a real problem in this city of Los Angeles, between what really goes on and the perception people have of it.  The politicians --supported by the media-- offer a totally distorted image:  On one side the glamour of Hollywood, which really concerns only about 1% of the population, and on the other, the extreme violence infecting bad neighborhoods.  But it's impossible to reduce a city like L.A. to such a black and white vision of things.  By spreading fear and paranoia into people's hearts, the media conditions them to go further and further each day from the truth.  All we do is to try to avoid further riots while ignoring the population's problems.  But indifference has never resolved anything."
 
"Tupak Shakur's death gives me a feeling of waste and powerlessness. I didn't know him personally, and I don't know anything about the situation, but he was too young to die.  Every time a black man kills another black man, he's not only committing a crime, he's also committing suicide. My brothers are killing one another here and it makes me ill.  Sometimes, outsiders ask if we've learned to live with the violence that rules in L.A., but how can you learn to live with such an absurdity? My wife and I are so terrified of the news that we don't watch them anymore."

"The social climate in America is traumatic. You have to constantly look out for yourself and your loved ones. But it's especially because of the American social system that I'm angry for living here, not because of individuals. You can't let the the people who govern us do as they please. Has the man on the hill for vocation to enslave the man of the valley? I don't think so, each person has to fight daily in order to transform society's values. The cost of living has completely upset family structures. I think it should be a collective duty to support mothers economically so that they can raise their children for one or two years after birth. That's the age when everything is determined, so support the mother, or the father if the woman is working, and you might kill the evil at the root."

"I shouldn't get involved in politics, and I don't usually. My feeling is that politics is there to protect the riches of a minority: the financial minority that lives at the expense of the working majority. You can no longer trust people who have a mandate to protect because their interests are always turned towards those with the money. It's up to each person to improve things for the good of all. We live in a world where everything is fast: food, cars, everything is fast. Nobody wants to get involved in the long term. Everybody wants to be free yet nobody wants to pay the price of that freedom. In this country people die of the freedom given to others. We let anyone carry a firearm, and then we make an uproar when a 10-year-old kid comes to school with a gun. What is more important: the Constitution or the lives of our children?
Americans are big hypocrites: they're always complaining about violence but they each have a gun in their drawer. Uzis aren't made in  L.A., in the warehouses of South Central, they're imported, they're brought over the border. There's guys in office buildings whose job it is to sell them. Let them start by changing careers, let the politicians fight against this scandalous trade, and then the streets may find the peace they used to know. Black babies are not born with Uzis under their arms."

"The legitimacy of all powers is to protect criminals. Once you understand that you can act intelligently and methodically."

Poster © The revolution will be colorized by Speed (Scott Hall)

"To hold this downward spiral in check, you have to create your own reality, your own country inside of you. Surround yourself with friends, with a strong and stable family; help the people you love, the people you know, and keep fighting for your beliefs. It sounds hopelessly naïve but it works.
To speak of political conscience at the level of a country is unrealistic: the terms are antinomical. As for Democracy in the United States, it's a sham. Each State in the Union took the idea and gave it its own definition, and since there is as much in common between New York and Idaho than between Japan and Moldavia, you can just image the mess...
The only unity that exists is the racket set up by the state with taxes:  Money they steal from us without letting us know what it is used for. I lose a lot of money to taxes. Half of what I make is siphoned off to the government. Before I even see any of it, half of it is siphoned off.  The thing to do would be to say: "OK, we're going to take half of your money, but at least you get to decide which institutions will use it: protection of child, women, drug addicts, research..."

The earthquake in Kobe (Japan) in 1998 allowed him to put this principle into practice. As he had promised, he personally went to give the money made from the concerts in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka to the most severely affected victims, who were staying in a city park. "I don't believe in organizations or authorities, I will give this money myself to the people of Kobe."  In order to do this he cancelled all of his promotional meetings.

"By what right would I represent the oppressed? No, we need elected representatives It's not my job to speak in the name of a community, but at the same time I feel happy each time Blacks make some progress in American society or in the world. Anything which brings us further away from slavery is a  victory. For me, I really believe in the pride of knowing where you come from, the knowledge of your ancestors and how their spirit lives on in us. That's the most important thing as far as I'm concerned."

"Sometimes I can appear cynical because there are all of these dehumanizing institutions around us that control our future. It pisses me off. They've separated the people from politics. They've taken the people out of all the decision-making bodies of power. Consequently, politics can't act for the people. It makes me sad. If you want to be heard, you have to scream twice as loud. I'm anxious to see what our generation will do because someday the old political guard will die off. Most of the guys I went to high school with are morons. They can't even find their way to the bathroom. I don't want to be a spiritual or political leader, I just tell stories through my music. Listen to the words, let yourself be carried by the music and get out of it what you want to. I'm not a seer and I don't feel that I'm on  some mission, I'm just trying to express myself through music without trying to please anybody; it's kind of like therapy for this complicated life."

"My approach is honest and maybe my fans feel that. They find something comforting in this sincerity. But I don't focus things that follow their own course, that I can't influence. Thinking about it would probably make me crazy."
Photo © Fabrice Demessence

On February 17, 1997, Ben Harper performed at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the "Tibet House Benefit". He played "Redemption song" and "Oppression / Get up Stand up". Between the two songs, he said: "My name is Ben Harper and I believe in freedom. And I believe in freedom that each one of us can bring to the Earth, in our own way. My way is music."

"Marley spoke universally, like Martin Luther King or the other black leaders of this century. Rather than change the world, music has allowed me to change my own world. If people want to get a message from what I say in my lyrics, on love and society, then let them do it according to their own experience, by confronting it with mine. Everyone is the master of their own destiny, you just have to learn how to control it and music can no doubt help in that. I'd like to see more people, especially young people, rebelling against what is forced upon them, but it isn't my job to tell them how this should be done. I don't preach, I never encourage other people to live like me or to believe what I believe. My path concerns me alone, and it is above all  spiritual and not  political."

"I really make an effort to live according to my word. That doesn't mean that I am exactly like in my songs. I have broken hearts and gladdened others. I aspire to be the best that I can be.
It's easy to be a gangster rapper like Snoop Doggy Dog who murders a man --him or his bodyguard-- and then goes around saying that you shouldn't do that. It's much more difficult to go in the other direction and to try to be a good guy because everyone is looking for the weakness under the image.
I try to maintain these beliefs as a way of life, to be a man of my word rather than a thug who repents afterwards."

Ben Harper : "Legalize. You've got to legalize ganja. Believe me, if the politicians had figured out a way to tax it, they would have already legalized it. You have to understand that the illnesses and deaths linked to cigarettes and to alcohol are greater than all of the other drugs combined, and yet they remain the only one's available legally because they can tax them as easily as they please. These two industries are so entrenched and financially powerful that they have become an economical force of Evil. They have blood on their hands." Photo © Leon Mobley by Jeff Gottlieb

"You know, if you can't make your own wine at home, if you can't roll yourself a cigarette and put something other than tobacco in it, you can plant a seed. You can plant a seed and it will grow. They can't stop you from planting a seed. Anybody can plant a seed anywhere."

"It raises your mind above what they are and what they want us to be. It raises your mind above what they say. It raises your mind above what they want you to swallow and what they want you to believe is the truth and it brings you to another truth: supreme truth. This truth enriches you and they don't want you to be enriched in that way."

01/31/00 - Palace Theatre: New Haven, CT - After "Burn One Down" Ben chatted with the audience - "People say well you know what if I don't want my kids to smoke pot and certain things like this and I understand that, you know. If you want to smoke it, smoke it and if you don't want to smoke it, don't smoke it. But even deeper than that, I mean, we all have a responsibility to ourselves really. I mean, I know some people who smoke pot and they get really creative, it brings out the best in their genius. And man, I know people who smoke some pot and they can't do shit. So, I'm not down with addiction, but I'm down with it on a medicinal level for what it can do for your mind. So anybody wants to come up and Burn One Down...." (transcript by Gavin Conaty - www.benharper.net)

Burn One Down lyrics | "Let us burn one from end to end and pass it over to me my friend. Burn it long, we'll burn it slow to light me up before I go. If you don't like my fire, then don't come around 'cause I'm gonna burn one down. Yes, I'm gonna burn one down. My choice is what I choose to do and if I'm causing no harm, it shouldn't bother you. Your choice is who you choose to be and if you're causin' no harm, then you're alright with me. Herb the gift from the earth and what's from the earth is of the greatest worth. So before you knock it try it first. Oh, you'll see it's a blessing and not a curse."