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" In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm just taking the music that comes to me and trying to make it as beautiful as I can. You can't really predict or control how people will receive that music. "
Kamasi Washington
Control
People
Music
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" Malcolm X's separatist ideas were situational. If you think about where African-Americans were in the 1940s and 1950s, we needed to step away because that force, which is still present but more subdued, was very in your face, and we needed to take a step back just to get some clarity. "
Kamasi Washington
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" 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
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" Becoming a musician is a strange thing. It's not all cupcakes and ice cream. You're trying to master an instrument, and you sometimes can't tell if you're getting better. You love it, but you also hate it. "
Kamasi Washington
Love
Ice Cream
Hate
" All forms are complex once you get to a really high level, and jazz and hip-hop are so connected. In hip-hop, you sample, while in jazz, you take Broadway tunes and turn them into something different. They're both forms that repurpose other forms of music. "
Kamasi Washington
Music
You
Hip-Hop
" 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
You
Age
Alone
" In the '80s, a lot of kids, if you were kind of bright, you got bussed to schools out of your community. So you wouldn't know the talented musicians who lived around the corner from you. "
Kamasi Washington
You
Musicians
Know
" One of the things I did learn from 'The Epic' was that we don't have to feel so much pressure to conform to set formats. A song doesn't have to be three minutes and 30 seconds. "
Kamasi Washington
Learn
Pressure
Three
" L.A. has always been hated on so much. I remember, the first time I went to New York, I was at jam sessions, and people would hear me and come up to me and be like, 'Oh wow, you're from L.A.? Really?' "
Kamasi Washington
People
Me
New York
" 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
Time
You
Music
" At the time of 'The Epic,' as a core band, we were all spending so much time apart making music for other people that by the time we got together - even though we grew up together and there's a special connection we have - it was like a rare privilege to come together. "
Kamasi Washington
Special
Together
Music
" Isaac Smith sounded like Curtis Fuller, Corey Hogan sounded like Sonny Rollins, Terrace Martin sounded like Jackie McLean. Already, at 13, 14, 15 years old. "
Kamasi Washington
Years
Isaac
Like
" The song 'Leroy and Lanisha' on my album 'The Epic' is really my homage to 'Linus and Lucy.' "
Kamasi Washington
Song
Really
Epic
" I don't want to live my life to necessarily overcome struggle, but when I am going to hit struggle throughout my life, I face it head on. "
Kamasi Washington
Live
Life
Struggle
" Jazz is like a telescope, and a lot of other music is like a microscope. "
Kamasi Washington
Microscope
Music
Like
" The thing about hip-hop is, like, that the instruments were taken out of schools. But - you might have taken the instruments out of schools, but we'll take the records and sing over them! "
Kamasi Washington
Over
Sing
Take
" American music comes from the same tree, but sometimes we get to these places in history where we forget where things come from, and they get compartmentalized. "
Kamasi Washington
Forget
History
American
" At a certain point, when there's a barrier between you and what's right, eventually you have to decide you're not going to allow yourself to be subjugated. "
Kamasi Washington
Going
Yourself
You
" I think the open mind is the one that's reachable. "
Kamasi Washington
Mind
I Think
Think
" 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
Good
Baby
Day
" 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
Brother
Someone
Love
" When I was about seventeen, I had a group called the Young Jazz Giants. We played all originals. When we would finish playing, people would be like, 'Oh my God, that was so nice, that was so great.' But Pops would never tell us we were the best. He would give it to us straight, like, 'You're out of tune. You're dropping beats.' "
Kamasi Washington
Best
Great
Nice
" 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
Year
Life
Kind
" The musicians I really looked up to as a kid were the ones who could play everything. "
Kamasi Washington
Play
Kid
Everything
" As musicians, we have one of the greatest tools of bringing people together in music. "
Kamasi Washington
People
Together
Music
" A legacy is a lot of times determined by how people accept your music. And sometimes people's legacy starts late or starts early, or they last a long time or a short amount of time. As a musician, I've never taken an approach of wanting to try to control that because I don't think that I can. "
Kamasi Washington
Think
Time
Music
" 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
Ideas
Beautiful
Reading
" What fixes your spirit when Ferguson happens? When Trayvon Martin and those kind of things happen, they hurt your spirit; it hurts your heart and your soul. You need something to fix it. "
Kamasi Washington
Things Happen
Heart
Hurt
" My dad was very much a Pan-Africanist and instilled in me and my siblings a want for that knowledge. "
Kamasi Washington
Want
Much
Me
" My dad was really into avant garde jazz: Archie Shepp, John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. "
Kamasi Washington
Dad
Archie
Really
" Jazz is a part of me. "
Kamasi Washington
Part
Me
Jazz