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" 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
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" I think the open mind is the one that's reachable. "
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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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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" I think the reason why I see life as this never-ending struggle is because I imagine it having endless potential. "
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" 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. "
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Music
" I feel like I'm musically free to do what I want. "
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Like
Free
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. "
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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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Your
You
" 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. "
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Ideas
Beautiful
Reading
" 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. "
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Healing
Broken
People
" I was that kid who made his friends listen to the albums they didn't want to. "
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Made
Who
Want
" 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. "
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Me
People
Think
" There's this notion that music has to be confined to some small, simple place to be popular, something I never believed. "
Kamasi Washington
Simple
Music
Small
" 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. "
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Heart
I Am
Musicians
" My hope is that witnessing the beautiful harmony created by merging different musical melodies will help people realize the beauty in our own differences. "
Kamasi Washington
Beautiful
Beauty
Help
" I think people psych themselves out before they listen to jazz a lot, thinking that they have to, like, put on a suit or something. That's not what it is. "
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Thinking
Jazz
Listen
" 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. "
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Year
Life
Kind
" People like to compartmentalise music, especially African-American music, but it's really one thing. One very wide thing. I mean, it's like all those great records by Marvin Gaye and James Brown back in the day - there are tonnes of jazz musicians playing on them. "
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People
Musicians
Music
" 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. "
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Love
Art
Diversity
" I can't really worry about nuclear war any more than I can worry about the aliens coming. "
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Worry
More
I Can
" My dad was really into avant garde jazz: Archie Shepp, John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. "
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Dad
Archie
Really
" 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. "
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Things Happen
Heart
Hurt
" 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?' "
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People
Me
New York
" 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. "
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You
Musicians
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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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Be Different
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" Jazz is an interesting music. It's one of the few forms of music where everyone that's performing the music has a creative stake in the music. In jazz, everyone's improvising, and everyone's creating at the same time. "
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Jazz
Creative
Time
" Music is an expression of life, who you are, and what you've been through. "
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Music
Through
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