Boots Riley is a poet, songwriter, screenwriter, producer, community activist and lead vocalist for the Bay Area based politically driven, funk, punk, hip hop, and soul group The Coup.
In 1991 Riley founded the political hip hop group The Coup with fellow United Parcel Service worker E-roc. Pam the Funkstress, DJ for the group, joined in 1992. Boots was chief lyric writer and produced the music on the albums. Stop here--no one cares about individual songs and then go down to:
In 2003, Vibe Magazine named Boots Riley one of the 10 most influential people of 2002.
Boots Riley produced the score for the 2005 episode of The Simpsons, "Pranksta Rap". In 2006, The Coup released Pick a Bigger Weapon on Epitaph Records. The album was named "Album Of The Year" by Associated Press. It featured guest appearances by Tom Morello, Talib Kweli, Black Thought from The Roots, and Jello Biafra.
In 2007 and 2008, Riley toured heavily with New Orleans-based band Galactic. The band performed Coup songs behind Riley's vocals and they also performed their collaboration, "Hustle Up". In 2008, while performing with Galactic in Norfolk, VA, police interrupted the concert and Riley was charged with "public profanity"- a charge that had, until then, never been used in its 26 years of existence. The case was thrown out of court, with the judge citing that the law itself was unconstitutional. At their next meeting, the Norfolk city council voted to get rid of the law in question.
Boots, who has been a community activist for many years, became heavily involved with the Occupy Oakland movement in 2011.
Boots is also working on a script for a feature-length film.