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" I feel like I'm musically free to do what I want. "

Kamasi Washington

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" The fact of the matter is that nobody understands what John Coltrane is doing except John Coltrane. And maybe not even him. So we're all experiencing it on this subconscious level. "

Kamasi Washington

" By the time I was about 15, I was out playing gigs and knew I was going to be a musician. "

Kamasi Washington

" There's a whole stereotype of the jazz musician that's into poetry and reading and metaphysics and all that stuff. Really, it's a sign of someone who's searching, whose mind is open, looking for answers. Whatever ideas you may come up with, the beautiful thing is the search. "

Kamasi Washington

" I never had a problem moving between jazz and hip-hop. "

Kamasi Washington

" We started 'Heaven And Earth' in 2016. That was probably the heaviest touring year of my whole life. We probably did almost 200 shows in 2016. We went into the studio, and I honestly didn't know what the album was going to be. So I just kind of started picking songs that I liked. "

Kamasi Washington

" When you're making music, you're creeping up on your heart and pouring it out into something. "

Kamasi Washington

" I was hearing music in my head and trying to play it on the clarinet, but it didn't match.' Then, literally the first day, it did with the saxophone. I was like, 'Oh man, that's what I've been trying to do; this is what it's supposed to sound like.' "

Kamasi Washington

" The musicians I really looked up to as a kid were the ones who could play everything. "

Kamasi Washington

" West Coast hip hop was the sound of my neighbourhood. It was something I could relate to because it had a sound that felt like my surroundings - almost more so than what they were saying. That music was made to be bumped in a Cadillac! "

Kamasi Washington

" The song 'Leroy and Lanisha' on my album 'The Epic' is really my homage to 'Linus and Lucy.' "

Kamasi Washington

" Even the greatest musicians, they only represent themselves. You represent who you are and what your experiences are and what you have in your heart, and it's the same for me. I represent who I am and what I've been through and what I'm bringing to the music. "

Kamasi Washington

" As a person who grew up in Los Angeles - that's a very diverse place - I've always felt like that diversity is a blessing. It's not a problem to be solved: it's a gift to be thankful for. "

Kamasi Washington

" This precious thing of empathy and love and understanding is something we have to hold and appreciate and protect. "

Kamasi Washington

" Every time you learn a new language, your understanding of language overall grows, so every time I would learn new music, my understanding of music would grow because I was taken to an extreme in a different direction, and that was, in effect, carrying over into what I do. "

Kamasi Washington

" I've had experiences where people say, 'I hated jazz before I heard you guys!' I'm like, 'You didn't hate jazz before you heard us; you hated the idea of jazz.' "

Kamasi Washington

" 'Harmony of Difference,' to me, was an opportunity to celebrate one another. And 'Fists of Fury' is an opportunity for us to protect one another. "

Kamasi Washington

" As musicians, we have one of the greatest tools of bringing people together in music. "

Kamasi Washington

" When I first played some Coltrane-type stuff on the 'Pimp a Butterfly' sessions, Kendrick got it immediately. 'I want it to sound like it's on fire,' he'd say. That's the kind of common ground that the best jazz and the best hip-hop have. "

Kamasi Washington

" We learned at a young age, with our dad, that even if you weren't doing something, you had to look like you were, or some hard labor was coming your way. That's the reason I started practicing music - when I was practicing, Pops left me alone. "

Kamasi Washington

" As a musician, your instrument is almost predetermined. I had played drums, piano, clarinet, but when I heard Wayne Shorter play the saxophone, I knew that sound is what I wanted. "

Kamasi Washington

" I started playing drums at three, then piano at five, then clarinet. But it wasn't till I picked up a saxophone aged 13 that I really got serious about music. "

Kamasi Washington

" Someone like Donald Trump can't control the way I show love to my brother. He can't control the way I feel about my neighbors. "

Kamasi Washington

" L.A. is a big city that has a lot of music in it but is not necessarily known for it. A lot of musicians got lost in that. You can make a living; you can gig a lot within the city and never get out of it. That was something that me and my friends, our generation, were afraid of happening to us. "

Kamasi Washington

" Jazz is like a telescope, and a lot of other music is like a microscope. "

Kamasi Washington

" My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn't know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn't fail. It was all, 'Yeah baby, you sound real good' no matter what you play. It was a great way to learn. "

Kamasi Washington

" I started playing with this band, the Polyester Players. It was my introduction into funk. So I went and got a James Brown record. 'Black Caesar' is a film score, but it's so dope. "

Kamasi Washington

" My hope is that witnessing the beautiful harmony created by merging different musical melodies will help people realize the beauty in our own differences. "

Kamasi Washington

" It's either, like, 'Your album was the first jazz album I listened to,' or, like, 'My friend took me to this show, and I've never been to a jazz show before, but, man, I'm so happy I came. I can't wait to go home and see more.' And you can feel it in the crowd, too. You can see the groups of people that don't really know what to expect. "

Kamasi Washington

" I think the reason why I see life as this never-ending struggle is because I imagine it having endless potential. "

Kamasi Washington

" There were two things I discovered when I toured with Snoop. One was that the band was all jazz musicians. The second was to instil in me a respect for other styles of music. From then on, whenever I played a new kind of music, I came with the same kind of open mind. What are they trying to do? What are they hearing? How do they see music? "

Kamasi Washington