Rap actually took root in the Negro community, and then in the Hispanic community, long before it impacted on the larger American community as a whole.

You get a show where people are jumping up and dancing, but it's not a critical event in the sense of profound catharsis. Essentially it's celebratory.

A whole generation of young whites have involved themselves with traditional Negro music.

Negro music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential. Nothing is sacred. After a decade, a musical idea, no matter how innovative, is threatened.

Music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential.

And when I met Cecil Taylor it was a complete transformation of musical identities. All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.

Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.

I find that here in the States, audiences are generally less knowledgeable, from the cognitive point of view, though they are emotionally more receptive.

I can't see any separation between my music and my life. I play pretty much race music: its about what happened to my father, to me, and what can happen to my kids.

In rap music, even though the element of poetry is very strong, so is the element of the drum, the implication of the dance. Without the beat, its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.

There is no one as intolerant as an open minded liberal.

If you should read, begin with Holy Scriptures.

If you have no faith, you've lost your battle.

Those people are unabashedly ruthless as far as money is concerned.

Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.

Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.

Why are there no windows in the toilets on aeroplanes? To protect you from the most dedicated perverts on the planet, hanging off the wing to get a peep?

The only male singer who I've seen besides myself and who's better than me--that is Michael Jackson.

I am a slow reader. I always loved words, which is a strange thing given that I couldn't actually read them

Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.