Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.

If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.

It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

In music, silence is more important than sound.

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.

Never give up your right to be wrong, and be sure to give others that right too.

I believe we owe it to each other to tell stories. It's as close to a credo as I have or will, I suspect, ever get.

Strength is happiness. Strength is itself victory. In weakness and cowardice there is no happiness

We have a right to defend ourselves, but we don't have a right to aggress.

Dance is low on the totem pole of the arts, because you're not left with a painting... a book that will stay there, a score you can read.

I have composed several pieces which are performed outdoors, not only in the auditoria.

Let your works climb the stars; but you yourself stay on the ground!

It is incredible to me that my Twitter feed is a source of 'news' for every rock news outlet around the world.

Being born in Jamaica, race was never an issue. It was always about the type of person I wanted to be, not the colour of my skin.

My father saw two black men lynched on his street in Cartersville, as a child. And I think seeing two black businessmen - not vagrants - hanging from trees as a child was traumatic for him.