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" 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. "

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" The blues is played everywhere. There's no place I've been where they don't have blues or aren't interested in blues. "

Taj Mahal

Blues

Been

Place

" 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. "

" 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. "

Taj Mahal

Language

People

" I see myself as a composer who plays music and likes to play with other people, and not just as a solo artist. "

" My grandparents on my father's side came to this country from the Caribbean with a strong connection to Africa and no shame about it. "

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

" The song of the blues, the song of the music, was something a lot of people missed out on. They thought they had to swagger a certain way or bark at the mic, and you don't have to do that. "

" 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. "

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

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

" My parents grew up during the Harlem renaissance. "

Taj Mahal

Parents

Grew

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

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

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

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

" 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'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. "

" If the Rolling Stones are playing a concert across town, that's not my audience anyways. But I do find that there's a lot of people coming back around to see me again. "

" Naw, it - it never stops, man... You gotta be doing what you're supposed to be doing - whenever, however it's coming down, you know. If you're getting your butt kicked - you still gotta do what you gotta 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. "

" 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. "

Taj Mahal

Growing Up

Home

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

" I don't care if it's somebody else's song. Most of the time, you'll find that I'll put my own stamp on it. But I started writing more because, you know, it's easy to regurgitate what somebody else is doing, but it's exciting to be able to come up with your own writing. "

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

Taj Mahal

Doing

Think

" I came up not understanding that a lot of people didn't start to hear music until they went to college or were turned on by an older brother or sister. "

" As I got more involved in music, one of the things that made me excited, from the time I was a child, was that clear link between our ancestors and the sounds we hear today. "

Taj Mahal

Time

Child

" As a kid, I always felt connected to Africa; it was something I was very proud of. "

" As a youngster, my parents made me aware that all that was from the African Diaspora belonged to me. So I came in with Caribbean music, African music, Latin music, gospel music and blues. "

Taj Mahal

Parents

Caribbean

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

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