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" I'm a composer, man. "

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" In looking out into the world, it didn't look all that nice out there. And who were the nice people? Certainly Mahatma Gandhi was. "

" I'm doing exactly what I should be doing, every day on the road. "

" I base myself in African-derived music. Blues is one of the modern forms of African music. "

" When I was 5 or 6, I was messing around with the piano, and I listened to everything from Chopin to boogie-woogie. "

" I wanted to keep pushing the musical ideas I had about jazz, music from Africa and the Caribbean. "

" As a solo performer, it's total involvement. What I do is to break down the wall between audience and performer. "

" What you have to understand is that blues... it's in a line from the oldest forms of African music. If you're playing it like it's an echo of the past, it would be a lot less exciting, but this music lives today. "

" American music is a powerful ingredient in international music, and as much as it comes from within, it also comes from without. "

" My perspective is cultural and world-based. It's always been a global perspective. "

" I'm always cracking up when I hear what people think I should be doing. "

" More and more people are finally realizing that in the heart of America, there's all this incredible music that wasn't widely heard before because it wasn't in the interest of those who feel they have to control the taste of the wider public. "

" I've only been on MTV once as one of their 'Closet Classics,' with some bootleg footage of a 1970 tour I did in Holland. They didn't know what to make of my music, but they finally invented a name for it - world beat music. "

" I don't need the credits for playing the blues and paying the dues. I've already done it. There are some other things to do here - movies and scores and voice-overs. "

" I would have never gotten to college if it hadn't been for getting up at 4 A.M. and milking them Holsteins. "

" My grandmother had many children. She lost most. So when we came along, we were really special. I was the first grandchild that could see her spirit moving to a new generation. "

" I was always taught that Latin, Caribbean people were cousins to me, as well as blues was a cousin to me, as well as Africans were direct relatives to me. It was all a part of my language. "

" I'm perceived as someone who goes out and searches for new music, but it was all present in my household. "

" I've got tons more stuff to do. "

" I just worked my own personal thoughts into my music, and just kept at it until I found a way in. "

" Music is like the soul of the planet. "

" It's pretty exciting. An honorary doctorate of the arts. It doesn't get any better. "

" My parents grew up during the Harlem renaissance. "

" The one thing I've always demanded of the records I've made is that they be danceable. "

" What the future of the planet and music and art and all of it is sharing; it's diversity. "

" I enjoy music wherever it's coming from. "

" It's very interesting, the dynamics of popularity. When you do something all the time, you don't worry about whether it's trendy or not. "

" No matter what went down, music was always going to be a part of my life. What ultimately happened is that, over a period of time, I just kind of looked around and when like, 'Wow! I'm actually making a living doing this.' "

" Very old music is, like, 11th century in my mind. That's very old. "

" All the music that I play today, I actually heard either at home or in my neighborhood when I was growing up in the '40s and '50s. "

" I was always looking for evidence of these common musical roots, but I was too young to know that what I was doing was called ethnomusicology. "