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" Music is an expression of life, who you are, and what you've been through. "

Kamasi Washington

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" '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. "

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" 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! "

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" I grew up with a sense of music being a very spiritual experience while playing in church and with parents who were socially aware, always teaching me to look beyond the obvious in understanding how the world works. "

Kamasi Washington

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

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

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" 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. "

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" I have to always check back in with my imagination just to remember that I have this infinite potential, and I can do anything, and anything is possible. "

Kamasi Washington

" My mum liked gospel and R&B, Chaka Khan, and Whitney Houston. "

Kamasi Washington

" I think the open mind is the one that's reachable. "

Kamasi Washington

" There's this notion that music has to be confined to some small, simple place to be popular, something I never believed. "

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

" 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

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

Kamasi Washington

" I think L.A. has one of the most innovative and forward-thinking jazz scenes in the world. New York definitely has the volume - there's more music happening in New York than anywhere else. But to me, L.A. - it's kind of a gift and a curse. "

Kamasi Washington

" We're the only ones who can change our reality. "

Kamasi Washington

" Music is an expression of who you are, and - at least in that sense - I think I epitomize Black Lives Matter. I'm a big black man, and I'm easily misunderstood. Before I started wearing these African clothes, people would assume that I was a threat and that it was O.K. to be violent toward me. "

Kamasi Washington

" We've now got a whole generation of jazz musicians who have been brought up with hip-hop. We've grown up alongside rappers and DJs; we've heard this music all our life. We are as fluent in J Dilla and Dr Dre as we are in Mingus and Coltrane. "

Kamasi Washington

" 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

" My dad was very much a Pan-Africanist and instilled in me and my siblings a want for that knowledge. "

Kamasi Washington

" Jazz is a part of me. "

Kamasi Washington

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

Kamasi Washington

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

Kamasi Washington

" Funk could very easily be called jazz, but you call it funk. Does that really matter? People dig that they associate themselves with certain genres, but the genres to me are made up things, like an imaginary world. "

Kamasi Washington

" Whenever my dad wasn't practicing, he was listening to music. He had an amazing jazz collection, and my mom had stuff like Chaka Khan to help balance it out. "

Kamasi Washington

" You have to dig deep to make great music, and it gets harder and harder. It's a difficult, painful process to reach deep in there and pull out the real gems. And you have to have that little bit of anxiety of, 'Can I really do this? Am I good enough?' You need that in the recipe to really get down in there. "

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

" 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

" I've known that about myself, that I've had two sides: one that's pretty tactical, down to earth, aware. There's also a really spacey side. But I realized they're kinda the same thing. "

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