African Culture Quotes

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  The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.

  Marcus Garvey

  Greatness, Racism, Black

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• I've got to where I am in life not because of something I brought to the world but through something I found - the wealth of African culture.

  Hugh Masekela

  Legacy, Culture, African Music

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• It's depressing to see blacks wanting to dive into the mainstream of American commercial life. They come from a magnificent African culture based on aesthetics, and they all want to become fort builders like the vicious people who originally enslaved them.

  George Carlin

  Depressing, People, Culture

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• It's obvious that the rest of the world loves high African culture - African culture, period.

  Hugh Masekela

  World Love, Culture, Periods

  "Hugh Masekela - what I'm thinking about ... a crisis for African culture". www.theguardian.com. March 12, 2013.

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• We have to realize our black heritage in order to give us strength to move on and progress. But as far as returning to the old African culture, it's unnecessary and it's not advantageous in many respects. We believe that culture itself will not liberate us. We're going to need some stronger stuff.

  Huey Newton

  Believe, Moving, Order

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• I think there's beauty in repetition. And that's part of my culture and African culture as well: repeated things, mantra. It's spiritual, it's meditation, it's Buddhism, it's praying, it's all these things.

  Robert Glasper

  Spiritual, Buddhism, Thinking

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in "real" African culture, before it was tainted by the west, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Real, West, Culture

  "Nigeria's immorality is about hypocrisy, not miniskirts" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, www.theguardian.com. April 2, 2008.

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• Families were living separately from the fathers. And so although, according to African culture, men were the head of the household, the truth is women were the ones who were raising everybody, including men. And growing up with my mother, that was something I really learned to appreciate.

  Trevor Noah

  Mother, Growing Up, Father

  "Trevor Noah Says He Grew Up 'In The Shadow Of A Giant' (His Mom)". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. November 22, 2016.

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• The equilibrium you admire in me is an unstable one, difficult to maintain. My inner life was split early between the call of the Ancestors and the call of Europe, between the exigencies of black-African culture and those of modern life.

  Leopold Sedar Senghor

  Europe, Black, Culture

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• A lot of my work reflects the incredible influence that America has had on contemporary African culture. Some of it's insidious, some of it's innocuous, some of it's invisible. It's there.

  Wangechi Mutu

  America, Culture, Influence

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I was in Paris last year, where there's a great appreciation of many different aspects of African culture and of black culture. The music... the art... whatever... And I kind of went with that.

  Lenny Kravitz

  Appreciation, Art, Years

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• One of the things that made the Black Muslim movement grow was its emphasis upon things African. This was the secret to the growth of the Black Muslim movement. African blood, African origin, African culture, African ties. And you'd be surprised - we discovered that deep within the subconscious of the black man in this country, he is still more African than he is American.

  Malcolm X

  Country, Men, Blood

  Malcolm X (1992). “February 1965: the final speeches”, Pathfinder Pr

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• So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.

  Zora Neale Hurston

  Jamaica, Generations, Culture

  Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (1979). “I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader”, p.125, Feminist Press at CUNY

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• It seemed [there are] musical nodes on the planet where cultures meet and mix, sometimes as a result of unfortunate circumstances, like slavery or something else, in places like New Orleans and Havana and Brazil. And those are places where the European culture and indigenous culture and African culture all met and lived together, and some new kind of culture and especially music came out of that.

  David Byrne

  New Orleans, Musical, Together

  Interview with Chris Dahlen, pitchfork.com. July 17, 2006.

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• The idea of a hypnotic riff as the prime mover of a piece of music has been around for a long time, whether you're talking about the Delta blues or music from Middle Eastern and African cultures.

  Jimmy Page

  Talking, Ideas, Long

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived. I can't think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.

  Tavis Smiley

  Thinking, Issues, Community

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• I never experimented with the hoddu like I wanted to do. Like on the song "Allah Addu," the hoddu and the voice is something that belongs to West African culture. When you go to the north of Mali, in the past it was just the singer and one instrument player. We never really did have that on our CDs. On some other songs, like "Laare Yoo," we have a whole section of hoddu, something like four of them playing together.

  Baaba Maal

  Song, Past, Player

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