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" When I was younger... we used to go to this place called Rexall to play 'Street Fighter.' At Rexall, there would be different people from different hoods there playing the game. It was the one place that was like an equalizer. It was just about how good you were at 'Street Fighter.' "

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" I used to tell my friends, 'Art Blakey is way more gangster than Eazy-E!' I ended up getting my friends into jazz, and all of a sudden there was this little group of kids in the middle of South Central that were all into hard-bop. "

Kamasi Washington

Gangster

Way

Group

" Fela Kuti blew my mind. His playing is very unorthodox, but I learned how to appreciate that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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! "

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

" I kept thinking about how ironic it is how people who live in places where there is diversity tend to love it - and the people that don't live in particularly diverse places tend to be the ones attacking it. In a way, that's similar to music, which is essentially the art of bringing things together. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm trying to just keep pushing on the things I've been wanting to do in my life and in music. And think of new things to do! "

" My dad was really into avant garde jazz: Archie Shepp, John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

" People need to realize that even the greatest jazz musicians, when they listen to jazz, they're not like, analyzing it and deconstructing it - they're enjoying it. It's like listening to any other style of music. It's saying something to you, and you kind of just absorb it. "

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

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

" 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. "

" Los Angeles has always been overlooked as far as jazz, and just high-level music in general. But, like, my dad's a musician, so I've grown up around so many brilliant musicians that nobody outside Los Angeles knows about. "

" 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

People

Think

" Jazz is a part of me. "

Kamasi Washington

Part

Jazz

" I can't really worry about nuclear war any more than I can worry about the aliens coming. "

Kamasi Washington

Worry

I Can

" '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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" Hip-hop and jazz have always been intertwined. Even the G-funk thing. You listen to 'The Chronic,' there's flute solos and everything. It's always been there. "