21 June 2019, Queens, New York City, USA
Pharrell Williams: 'This generation is the first that understands that we need to lift up our women', NYU - 2017
17 May 2017, Yankee Stadium, New York City, New York, USA
Thank you. Hi everybody.
I'd like to start by thanking President Andrew Hamilton, Trustees and the NYU students and faculty for welcoming me into your halls last year and letting me have an experience that I honestly could have never imagined.
And I want to thank all of you for this humbling experience today. This is major. It's heavy. I am grateful. My mom is a lifelong educator — so this is gonna look good for me.
To be a part of a group like this is unimaginable. To speak on behalf of our group is an honor that I am not sure if I am qualified for. Their accomplishments... The body of work represented on this stage is staggering. We have history-makers. Miracle-workers in their own way. If their names aren't on buildings yet, they will be.
I like to say that I am forever a student, and its people like this that I'll forever learn from. They are fearless, boundless, multi-disciplined and multi-talented. They break down barriers and embody the focus and dedication this planet needs — even if, for Mark Kelly, it means leaving it from time to time.
Some may call them public servants, but their work is actually in service of humanity and standing with them here today… and it's blowing my mind.
In this day and age, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it's the people who serve humanity, that make our world go around. Most media and certainly social media would lead you to believe otherwise.
This group’s work doesn't fuel gossip. Sadly, it doesn't generate a lot of clicks amongst a sea of headlines designed to bait. Their work is often too important to be boiled down to just a quick headline. Their work has never been more important, yet as a society, we seem to celebrate less important achievements far more frequently. I am glad to be a part of a moment that recognizes these people.
Think about it… these great scientists, public servants, and activists cannot be bothered with building their Instagram followers. Or how many views they get on Youtube... But they are the real influencers. Their work makes us healthier, safer, more enriched, and more intelligent. Their work is designed to improve the quality of life for all people, not just themselves.
They are not motivated by attention. But rather, they are motivated by the idea of creating change. For the better.
I personally find that incredibly inspiring. I hope you do as well.
NYU — the school you all chose to attend — is going out of its way to honor this distinguished group. What will they honor you for someday? What will they honor you for?
Speaking to you guys today has me charged up. As you find your ways to serve humanity, it gives me great comfort knowing this generation is the first that understands that we need to lift up our women. Imagine the possibilities when we remove imbalance from the ether. Imagine the possibilities when women are not held back. Your generation is unraveling deeply entrenched laws, principles and misguided values that have held women back for far too long and therefore, have held us all back. The world you will live in will be better for it.
This is the first generation that navigates the world with the security and confidence to treat women as equal. You are the first ever. Our country has never seen this before. It makes some people uncomfortable. But just imagine the possibilities.
Today is in many ways a celebration of higher education.
I am forever a student... I believe it is a trait we all share. Yet we live in a time when a great education is harder and harder to come by.
But like anything in life, if there is enough demand, somebody will supply it.
To the graduates, you might think your time in education is done, but after you leave here today, I am asking you to let your actions out there in the world... fuel the demand for better education. Engage and inspire — whether on an individual level or loudly within your communities. Talk about your accomplishments. Be humble, but not too humble. Don't be invisible.
Sidebar... The days of being an anonymous activist or participant are over. How can we inspire if we are only behind the scenes? How will an anonymous donation ever inspire another? That was the way of previous generations. Don't be like them.
Let your actions serve as an endorsement for education and watch the demand rise.
Shining a light on a group of individuals like these on this stage also helps fuel the demand. It's why all of us standing here do what we do.
That same gene — those same feelings and adrenaline that fuel US — is inside all of you as well. Just like you, these recipients are brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. We all have a daily commute, but we do so with an eye towards something bigger. Serving humanity.
There is no humanity without education. There is no education without demand.
You are all walking endorsements for education. Embrace it.
Thank you again to the students and faculty at NYU. Thank you to these remarkable individuals that I am standing with here. For your service, leadership and inspiration. We are all forever grateful.
Thank you.
Victor Wooten: 'We have to remember that the world is a beautiful place and we are beautiful people', University of Vermont, Rubenstein School - 2016
20 June 2016, Burlington, Vermont,. USA
When I was preparing for this, I realise I had done a lot of talks. I'd even done a few keynotes speeches, but I thought this is special, this is different. I'm not talking to a bunch of musicians. I have to really be on my game, so I actually wrote a speech, first time ever in my life I wrote one. Until I had breakfast with Matt, and in talking to him I realised writing and saying speeches is not what I do. I just like to talk, and I like to play, so this won't quite be a commencement speech. It'll be a commencement talk. Is that all right?
As Matt said, I played music most of my whole life. I was born into it, and it's true. I've gotten a lot of awards. I've been praised. I say that anybody born in my situation would be just as good. I don't really look at that. I appreciate the fact that people love what I do because I would do it anyway, but the fact that my peers love it is a bonus, but as my parents always said, they weren't so concerned about what we did, but they were concerned with who we are, who we were as people. If what we did didn't make us better people and make those around us better people, they questioned whether it was worth doing.
When we were little kids and was getting awards, things like that, and getting praised because we were young when we were doing a lot of these cool things, and people always credit the parents and things. My parents will say "Well, as much as they play they should be good. We don't care about that. Who wouldn't be good, right? But it's who they are as people is what we're concerned at[inaudible 00:03:46]."
I want to start with a quote that my mom would always say to us boys. They would ask the five of us, they would say, "What does the world need with just another good musician?" Mom would say, "We have plenty. What the world need is good people." They would say if we're going to spend all these hours in the practise room, all this time at school studying, don't stop doing it just make sure it's making you good people.
I'd asked you the same thing. What does the world need with just another Rubenstein graduate? There's been over 4,000, right? What the world needs are good people. What the world needs is you, right? When you were born and everybody here knows what it took to become born, I don't have to go through that, right? But if you realise, we've already won the most amazing race we will ever win, the most amazing race we will ever enter into. We've already won it. We're already born special. We're born winners.
You have a fingerprint that's never been here on the planet in the existence of the history of humankind. Your fingerprint has never been here and will never be here again. That's special. Cool thing is no one can take that away from you. Your job is to improve on that specialness and present it to the world. Now we present it to the world by what we do, but it always comes back to who you are, how you relate to people because when you leave here believe it or not the people more than likely you're going to associate with some of them are sitting right next to you, so it's how they see you today might determine how they see you tomorrow.
In your journeys as you leave here, this is a happy moment, but all the moments that come forth may not be that happy. The bad things will happen in life, but I want you to look it maybe in a different way. When bad things happen in life, they jump out at us, they grab us, they grab our attention. The press and the world would make us think that everything is bad, but the bad things jump out at us because they're not normal, right? We have to remember that the world is a beautiful place and we are beautiful people.
Because the bad things jump out at us, that is proof. This is kind of hard to do and play at the same time. But because the bad things jump out at us, you think about the news. Think about this. Let me put it this way. I just drove in from Boston last night, and I drove into Burlington. Just imagine, I'm going to make up a story, imagine that three people cut me off as soon as I get into Burlington. What do I do? I do what everybody does. I curse the whole city.
I say, "None of these people in Burlington can drive," when it was only three. Those three stand out because the thousands of others did it right, but we don't bless the ones that do it right. We forget about them because it's normal. It may be up to us to remind the world of what it really is. I love the fact that I get to speak to you because I'm usually speaking to musicians that know nothing about the outdoors and to me you guys are the liaison. You are like nature's voice. You are the ones that are speaking to us that don't listen, that don't hear nature. Maybe we'll listen to you.
Many of us won't speak back to nature, but you will. You are that middle ground, and I appreciate and thank you for doing what you do. When I was younger in the early nineties, I read a book by a man named Tom Brown, Jr. The book changed my life, changed my viewpoint I would say, so I went to go take a class with Tom Brown. I didn't know what this nature thing was about. At least I didn't think I did.
Tom Brown started talking about awareness, wide angle vision and tracking. Tom was drawing tracks on the board, and he showing me about the gates, and he was drawing these little circles. In my mind because I was thinking musical, I took these little tracks and put little stems on them. In my mind I made them into musical notes. It made sense right away. It was that time that I realised that for me music and nature were the same thing.
To me nature, what you guys are doing, is the bridge between all of life. Back then and not long after, a few years after that I started running a musical camp where we combined music and nature. It literally is changing people's lives, literally is changing people's lives. I'm saying that not to talk about me but to say that that's what your world is. You get to change people's lives in a good way.
I've been working with a man named Bela Fleck for over 20 years. I learned a lot about leadership from him. I always felt that music is a good way to address the world's issues. The best bands I've ever played in all the instruments were different. We don't curse those differences. We bless them. That's why I think the whole world should learn to play music. Then we might understand that differences are a blessing, not a curse.
Bela Fleck always said that he was a leader among equals. Even though the band had his name in it twice, he still treated us as equals. Whenever he would bring a new song to the table, he would never tell us what to play. He would just play his part and allow us to hear the song fresh. Bela recognised that I would probably come up with a better bass part than him. I've never written a banjo part for him, so he would let me hear the song and come up with my own part.
As simple as that was, I realised that's the way to lead. He lead in a way that brought out the best in us. If he had just told us what to play, he would have gotten his idea across, but I wouldn't have grown from it as much. As you guys go out and become world leaders, which many of you will, lead in a way that brings out the best in people and be a leader among equals.
Just a couple of ideas to leave with you. You're going to need a lot of guts to get out there and do what you do. For some of you when I was getting an explanation of what a lot of you are going to be doing after you graduate, a lot of your jobs I would say are a thankless job. You won't get the awards that I've gotten for just plucking on some strings, but I hope you are like me and not do your jobs for awards but to do it because it's right because that's what the world needs.
My aunt told me a story recently when she was at my house for a family reunion. Back in the seventies, we were all young. Actually I'm sorry, in the eighties. My aunt said my mom was up pacing in the middle of the night, and she asked my mom what was going on. My mom was agitated. She said my mom said, "All my friends are getting on me because I didn't go see my son's play at the coliseum, and they think 'Well, you don't care about your son.'" She said, "I don't need to see them. I know my sons. I've been knowing them my whole life. I've been seeing them play everyday. I don't need to go see them at the coliseum."
She said, "My friends think my sons are special because they play at the coliseum." The thing I didn't say is at this family reunion we had probably 60 people. One of my brothers was sleeping under the kitchen table. Another one was in the chair. Another one was sleeping in the garage. My mom said, "I don't care that they're getting awards and the fact that they're playing at the coliseum." She said, "I care about the fact that they'll play at the coliseum and then come home and sleep on the floor."
If my mom was here right now, she'd say, "That's what I'm talking about." It's who you are as people. You bring who you are to what you do. You going to have to get creative. You guys are the future and a lot of what you're going to need to do hadn't even been invented yet. I'm just going to pose one idea about creativity and inspiration. A lot of times when you get inspired you get creative. You feel a certain way. It's like being happy. There's a tingle. For me my body starts to tingle.
I say the next time it happens you feel creative or maybe like today, remember this feeling, put it in a data bank somewhere and remembers what it feels like because one of the things I have learned to do through a lot of training with people like Matt and my other nature friends I've learned the creative process, the inspiration process in reverse. When I need an idea, I create the feeling. I remember what inspiration feels like, and I can create the feeling and the inspiration arrives. It shows up, so practise it. It might work.
In parting I just want you to imagine that as a graduation gift each of you was awarded $36,525. Not bad, but here's the catch, you're not going to get anymore for the rest of your lives. Think about it, $36,525. You have cash, but you're not getting anymore. Thank about it. How would you treat that money? How would you handle it? I'm sure some of you would take very good care of it, spend it wisely, spend it on things that mattered, maybe invest, give to people in need, $36,525.
Well, if you lived to be 100, if you lived to be a hundred, that's 36,525 days including leap years. A dollar a day and you can probably not buy a house. That's if you live to be a hundred. If you're a male, cut off a bunch of years. If you're a person of colour, cut off a bunch more years. First few years of your life you don't even make your own decisions. They tell us to sleep eight hours a day. That's a year every three years. Time spent playing Candy Crush. How many days are actually left?
There's a saying that says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. The best time to start living your life was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. The world is in the palm of your hands. You can create whatever you want. I just say do it wisely and do it with others in your mind. Because when you include others as yourself, then it's okay to be selfish.
My name is Victor Wooten, and I congratulate you guys. I thank you in advance for all the beautiful work you're going to do.
What does the world need with just another musician? What the world needs is good people. Thank you Mom. When the going gets tough, that's a positive signal to keep charging. Thank you Daddy. Thank you all. Thank you all. Y'all are graduates. I love you. Thank you very much.
Bono: 'That's Not a Cause. That's an Emergency', UPenn - 2004
May 17, 2004, University of Pennsylvania, USA
My name is Bono and I am a rock star. Don’t get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited. I’d just like to say to the parents, your children are safe, your country is safe, the FCC has taught me a lesson and the only four letter word I’m going to use today is PENN. Come to think of it, Bono is a four-letter word. The whole business of obscenity – I don’t think there’s anything certainly more unseemly than the site of a rock star in academic robes. It’s a bit like when people put their King Charles spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats. It’s not natural, and it doesn’t make the dog any smarter.
It’s true we were here before with U2 and I would like to thank them for giving me a great life, as well as you. I’ve got a great rock and roll band that normally stand in the back when I’m talking to thousands of people in a football stadium and they were here with me I think it was seven years ago. Actually then I was with some other sartorial problems. I was wearing a mirror ball suit and I emerged from a forty-foot high revolving lemon. It was a cross between a space ship, a disco and a plastic fruit. I guess it was at that point when your Trustees decided to give me their highest honor.
Doctor of Laws, wow! I know it’s an honor, and it really is an honor, but are you sure? Doctor of Law, all I can think about is the laws I’ve broken. Laws of nature, laws of physics, laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and on a memorable night in the late seventies, I think it was Newton’s law of motion sickness. No, it’s true, my resume reads like a rap sheet. I have to come clean. I’ve broken a lot of laws, and the ones I haven’t I’ve certainly thought about. I have sinned in thought, word, and deed and God forgive me; actually God forgave me, but why would you? I’m here getting a doctorate, getting respectable, getting in the good graces of the powers that be, I hope it sends you students a powerful message: Crime does pay.
So I humbly accept the honor, keeping in mind the words of a British playwright, John Mortimer it was, “No brilliance is needed in the law, nothing but common sense and relatively clean fingernails.” Well, at best I’ve got one of the two. But no, I never went to college, I’ve slept in some strange places, but the library wasn’t one of them. I studied rock and roll and I grew up in Dublin in the ’70s; music was an alarm bell for me, it woke me up to the world. I was 17 when I first saw The Clash, and it just sounded like revolution. The Clash were like, “This is a public service announcement - with guitars.”
I was the kid in the crowd who took it at face value. Later I learned that a lot of the rebels were in it for the t-shirt. They’d wear the boots but they wouldn’t march. They’d smash bottles on their heads but they wouldn’t go to something more painful, like a town hall meeting. By the way I felt like that myself until recently. I didn’t expect change to come so slow. So agonizingly slow. I didn’t realize that the biggest obstacle to political and social progress wasn’t the Free Masons, or the Establishment, or the boot heal of whatever you consider the man to be, it was something much more subtle.
As the Provost just referred to, a combination of our own indifference and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of those you encounter as people vanish down the corridors of bureaucracy. So for better or worse that was my education. I came away with a clear sense of the difference music could make in my own life, in other peoples lives if I did my job right, which if you’re a singer in a rock band means avoiding the obvious pitfalls, like say a mullet hairdo. If anyone here doesn’t know what a mullet is, by the way, your education’s certainly not complete. I’d ask for your money back. For a lead singer like me, a mullet is, I would suggest, arguably more dangerous than a drug problem. Yes, I had a mullet in the ’80s.
Now this is the point where the faculty start smiling uncomfortably and thinking maybe they should have offered me the honorary bachelors degree instead of the full blown (“He should have been the bachelor’s one; he’s talking about mullets and stuff…”); and if they’re asking what on earth I’m doing here, I think it’s a fair question: what am I doing here? More to the point: what are you doing here? Because if you don’t mind me saying so, this is a strange ending to an Ivy League education. Four years in these historic halls thinking great thoughts and now you’re sitting in a stadium better suited for football listening to an Irish rock star give a speech that is so far mostly about himself. What are you doing here?
Actually I saw something in the paper last week about Kermit the Frog giving a commencement address somewhere. One of the students was complaining, “I worked my ass off for four years to be addressed by a sock?” You have worked your ass off for this. For four years you’ve been buying, trading, and selling, everything you’ve got in this marketplace of ideas. The intellectual hustle. Your pockets are full, even if your parents’ are empty, and now you’ve got to figure out what to spend it on. Well, the going rate for change is not cheap. Big ideas are expensive. The University has had its share of big ideas. Benjamin Franklin had a few, so did Justice Brennen and in my opinion so does Judith Rodin. What a gorgeous girl. They all knew that if you’re gonna be good at your word if you’re gonna live up to your ideals and your education, it’s gonna cost you. So my question, I suppose, is: What’s the big idea? What’s your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of the University of Pennsylvania?
There’s a truly great Irish poet; his name is Brendan Kennelly, and he has this epic poem called the Book of Judas, and there’s a line in that poem that never leaves my mind: “If you want to serve the age, betray it.” What does that mean to betray the age? Well to me betraying the age means exposing its conceits, its foibles, its phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths. Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was, which was ungodly and inhuman. Ben Franklin called it when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Segregation. There was another one. America sees this now but it took a civil rights movement to betray their age. And 50 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court betrayed the age May 17, 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education came down and put the lie to the idea that separate can ever really be equal. Amen to that.
Fast forward 50 years May 17, 2004, what are the ideas right now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now? What are the blind spots of our age? What’s worth spending your post-Penn lives trying to do or undo? It might be something simple. It might be something as simple as our deep down refusal to believe that every human life has equal worth. Could that be it? Could that be it?
Each of you will probably have your own answer, but for me that is it. And for me the proving ground has been Africa. Africa makes a mockery of what we say, at least what I say, about equality. It questions our pieties and our commitments because there’s no way to look at what’s happening over there and it’s effect on all of us and conclude that we actually consider Africans as our equal before God. There is no chance.
An amazing event happened here in Philadelphia in 1985, Live Aid, that whole ‘We Are The World’ phenomenon, the concert that happened here. Well after that concert I went to Ethiopia with my wife, Ali; we were there for a month and an extraordinary thing happened to me. We used to wake up in the morning and the mist would be lifting; we’d see thousands and thousands of people who’d been walking all night to our food station were we were working. One man – I was standing outside talking to the translator – had this beautiful boy and he was saying to me in Amharic, I think it was, I said I can’t understand what he’s saying; and this nurse who spoke English and Amharic said to me, he’s saying will you take his son. He’s saying please take his son; he would be a great son for you. I was looking puzzled and he said, “You must take my son because if you don’t take my son, my son will surely die. If you take him he will go back to where he is and get an education.” (Probably like the ones we’re talking about today.) I had to say no; that was the rules there and I walked away from that man.
I’ve never really walked away from it. But I think about that boy and that man and that’s when I started this journey that’s brought me here into this stadium. Because at that moment I became the worst scourge on God’s green earth, a rock star with a cause. Christ! Except it isn’t the cause. Seven thousand Africans dying every day of preventable, treatable disease like AIDS? That’s not a cause. That’s an emergency. And when the disease gets out of control because most of the population lives on less than one dollar a day? That’s not a cause. That’s an emergency.
And when resentment builds because of unfair trade rules and the burden of unfair debt (they are debts, by the way, that keep Africans poor)? That’s not a cause. That’s an emergency. So – We Are The World, Live Aid, Start Me Off, it was an extraordinary thing and really that event was about charity. But 20 years on I’m not that interested in charity. I’m interested in justice. There’s a difference. Africa needs justice as much as it needs charity. Equality for Africa is a big idea. It’s a big expensive idea. I see the Wharton graduates now getting out the math on the back of their programs; numbers are intimidating aren’t they, but not to you!
But the scale of the suffering and the scope of the commitment, they often numb us into a kind of indifference. Wishing for the end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa is like wishing that gravity didn’t make things so damn heavy. We can wish it, but what the hell can we do about it? Well, more than we think. We can’t fix every problem – corruption, natural calamities are part of the picture here – but the ones we can, we must. The debt burden, as I say, unfair trade, as I say, sharing our knowledge, the intellectual copyright for lifesaving drugs in a crisis; we can do that. And because we can, we must. Because we can, we must. Amen.
This is the straight truth. The righteous truth. It’s not a theory; it’s a fact. The fact is that this generation – yours, my generation – we’re the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this stupid extreme poverty, where, in a world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it’s belly. We can be the first generation. It might take a while, but we can be that generation that says no to stupid poverty. It’s a fact, the economists confirm it. It’s an expensive fact but cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism’s new recruits. That’s the economics department over there, very good. It’s a fact. So why aren’t we pumping our fists in the air and cheering about it? Well probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we’ve got to do something about it. For the first time in history we have the know-how, we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs, but do we have the will?
Yesterday, here in Philadelphia, at the Liberty Bell, I met a lot of Americans who do have the will. From arch religious conservatives to young secular radicals, I just felt an incredible overpowering sense that this was possible. We’re calling it the ONE campaign, to put an end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa. They believe we can do it; so do I. I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I’m not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing; I’m not a hippy; I do not have flowers in my hair; I come from punk rock, all right. The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn’t.
I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now; you don’t see it on TV; irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I’ve tried them all out but I’ll tell you this, outside this campus, and even inside it, idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism. Graduationism. Chismism; I don’t know. Where’s John Lennon when you need him?
But I don’t want to make you cop to idealism, not in front of your parents, or your younger siblings. But what about Americanism? Will you cop to that at least? It’s not everywhere in fashion these days. Americanism. Not very big in Europe, truth be told. No less on Ivy League college campuses. But it all depends on your definition of Americanism. Me, I’m in love with this country called America. I’m a huge fan of America, I’m one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn’t live up to that. I’m that kind of fan.
I read the Declaration of Independence and I’ve read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes dude. As I said yesterday I made my pilgrimage to Independence Hall, and I love America because America is not just a country, it’s an idea. You see my country, Ireland, is a great country, but it’s not an idea. America is an idea, but it’s an idea that brings with it some baggage, like power brings responsibility. It’s an idea that brings with it equality, but equality, even though it’s the highest calling, is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible, that’s one of the reasons why I’m a fan of America. It’s like hey, look there’s the moon up there, lets take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That’s the kind of America that I’m a fan of.
In 1771 your founder, Mr. Franklin, spent three months in Ireland and Scotland to look at the relationship they had with England to see if this could be a model for America, whether America should follow their example and remain a part of the British Empire. Franklin was deeply, deeply distressed by what he saw. In Ireland he saw how England had put a stranglehold on Irish trade, how absentee English landlords exploited Irish tenant farmers and how those farmers in Franklin’s words, “lived in retched hovels of mud and straw, were clothed in rags and subsisted chiefly on potatoes.” Not exactly the American dream.
So instead of Ireland becoming a model for America, America became a model for Ireland in our own struggle for independence. When the potatoes ran out, millions of Irish men, women and children packed their bags got on a boat and showed up right here. And we’re still doing it. We’re not even starving anymore. Loads of potatoes! In fact if there’s any Irish out there, I’ve breaking news from Dublin: the potato famine is over you can come home now. But why are we still showing up? Because we love the idea of America. We love the crackle and the hustle, we love the spirit that gives a finger to fate, the spirit that says there’s no hurdle we can’t clear and no problem we can’t fix… [sound of helicopter above the stadium] Oh, here comes the Brits! Only joking. No problem we can’t fix.
So what’s the problem that we want to apply all this energy and intellect to? Every era has its defining struggle and the fate of Africa is one of ours. It’s not the only one, but in the history books it’s easily going to make the top five, what we did or what we did not do. It’s a proving ground, as I said earlier, for the idea of equality. But whether it’s this or something else, I hope you’ll pick a fight and get in it. Get your boots dirty; get rough; steel your courage with a final drink there at Smoky Joe’s, one last primal scream and go. Sing the melody line you hear in your own head; remember, you don’t owe anybody any explanations; you don’t owe your parents any explanations; you don’t owe your professors any explanations.
You know, I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out. But it’s not. The future is not fixed; it’s fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo, whatever; this is the metaphor part of the speech by the way. But my point is that the world is more malleable than you think and it’s waiting for you to hammer it into shape. Now if I were a folksinger I’d immediately launch into “If I Had a Hammer” right now, get you all singing and swaying. But as I say I come from punk rock, so I’d rather have the bloody hammer right here in my fist. That’s what this degree of yours is, a blunt instrument. So go forth and build something with it. Remember what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, “He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures but rather seems to think us too irresolute.” Well this is the time for bold measures and this is the country and you are the generation.
Thank you.
Kanye West: 'I am a pop artist', Art Institute of Chicago - 2015
11 May, 2015, Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA
I am a pop artist.
So my medium is public opinion. And the world is my canvas.
I'm sorry is something you can use a lot. it gives you an opportunity to give your opinion, apologise for it, and give your opinion again. People say, 'you should not be sorry for your opinions'.
George Bush has some very cool self portraits., I didn't know he was an artist.
I felt my nerves a bit, and I don't feel that feeling a lot.
The nerves of humility and modesty when being honoured. A humanisation, a reality of being recognised. And all I thought, as I sit here, shaking a bit, is I need to get rid of that feeling. I need to not be nervous.
This honour is going to make your lives easier. Two reasons. You don't have top defend me as much. And I'm going to make all of our lives easier.
And it's these Floyd Mayweather belts that are needed to prove what I've been saying my entire life..
Whether it's the co-sign of Paul McCartney grabbing me and saying, 'It's okay he doesn't bite white people.' Or the New York Times cover. Or the Time 'Most Influential' cover. And now a doctorate at the Art Institute of Chicago. When I was giving a lecture at Oxford I brought up this school because when I went on that mission to create in other spaces, a parallel film, performance, it would have been easier if I could have said I have a degree at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Thank you.