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" When you bring multiple cultures together, there's a degree of push and pull. "
Kamasi Washington
Bring
Cultures
Push
Related Quotes:
" I never had a problem moving between jazz and hip-hop. "
Kamasi Washington
Hip-Hop
Never
Problem
" I like living on that edge, musically. I like a bit of insecurity and that feeling of not really knowing what's going to happen. "
Kamasi Washington
Edge
Living
Like
" 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
Clarity
Face
You
" 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
" '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. "
Kamasi Washington
Opportunity
Harmony
Celebrate
" 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
" 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
Me
People
Think
" 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
" 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. "
Kamasi Washington
Heart
I Am
Musicians
" The idea of the beauty of diversity came from just growing up where I grew up. Los Angeles is a very big city - there's Little Ethiopia, Little Armenia, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, there's African-Americans, Latinos, Europeans. "
Kamasi Washington
Diversity
Growing Up
Beauty
" Fela Kuti blew my mind. His playing is very unorthodox, but I learned how to appreciate that. "
Kamasi Washington
Appreciate
How
Learned
" There's a deeper level of healing that needs to happen for the world in general. There's a mass of people who are broken. "
Kamasi Washington
Healing
Broken
People
" 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
" I think the open mind is the one that's reachable. "
Kamasi Washington
Mind
I Think
Think
" I feel like I'm musically free to do what I want. "
Kamasi Washington
Like
Free
Want
" 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
" 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! "
Kamasi Washington
New Things
Life
Think
" In general, in my life, one of the coolest things that I've been able to do is to go to different places and meet different people and see how they view the world and to learn what their music is and what their language is, and the food they eat and everything. That idea of the beauty of the vastness of the world has just been my life. "
Kamasi Washington
People
Music
Beauty
" 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
" Gerald Wilson was one of my mentors: he was in his nineties before he passed and, literally, every time I saw him, he'd be like, 'Man, Kamasi, I've got this new thing! Nobody ever heard anything like this before!' It's amazing hanging out with somebody that was born in 1918. "
Kamasi Washington
New
Born
Time
" 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
Balance
Amazing
Music
" I wanted to be a positive force in the world. "
Kamasi Washington
Wanted
Positive
Force
" 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. "
Kamasi Washington
Sound
Saxophone
Play
" 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
" I was that kid who made his friends listen to the albums they didn't want to. "
Kamasi Washington
Made
Who
Want
" When I was working on 'To Pimp A Butterfly' and 'DAMN.,' I'm really making music for Kendrick. It's a different mindset than when I'm making music for me. I'm trying to get into his head and figure out what he wants because it's his vision. That's what I expect from people when they're playing on my records. "
Kamasi Washington
Me
Music
People
" 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
New York
Me
Think
" 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
" I've had experiences where people say, 'I hated jazz before I heard you guys!' I'm like, 'You didn't hate jazz before you heard us; you hated the idea of jazz.' "
Kamasi Washington
Hate
Say
People Say
" So much good music has been looked over because of preconceived notions of genre. "
Kamasi Washington
Over
Because
Much