African Music Quotes

• The curious beauty about African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad story.

  Nelson Mandela

  Uplifting, Stories, Curious

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• The curious beauty of African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad tale. You may be poor, you may have only a ramshackle house, you may have lost your job, but that song gives you hope.

  Nelson Mandela

  Uplifting, Song, Jobs

  FaceBook post by Nelson Mandela from Nov 22, 2014

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• You cannot sing African music in proper English

  Fela Kuti

  159 Copy quote

• 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, World

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• African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West.

  Miriam Makeba

  Music, West

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• I did not like that name "world music" in the beginning. I think that African music must get more respect than to be put in a ghetto like that. We have something to give to others. When you look to how African music is built, when you understand this kind of music, you can understand that a lot of all this modern music that you are hearing in the world has similarities to African music. It's like the origin of a lot of kinds of music.

  Baaba Maal

  Ghetto, Thinking, Names

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• What I love about African-African music is how unselfconscious it is in so many ways.

  St. Lucia

  Way, Music Is

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• One of my dreams is to expand and make sure African music and Afro Beats music is really on the map. I would like to be a contribution to that success.

  Ice Prince

  Dream, Maps, Afros

  Source: www.mobo.com

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• As players of instruments, it is our duty to reach out and give light to those in the dark in whatever way that we can. All my actions are a fulfilment of all the African music genres - I'm only trying to maintain the culture and the tradition. I am a musician.

  Sizzla

  Dark, Player, Light

  Source: nehandaradio.com

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• I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through.

  Max Roach

  Music, Play, Skills

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• The basic success of the conga came from ...that basic principle of African music and dance: everybody participates. The conga eradicated the distinction between performer and audience, broke down the wall of the proscenium.

  Ned Sublette

  Wall, Principles, Broke

  Ned Sublette (2007). “Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo”, p.409, Chicago Review Press

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• I just wanted to sing, and I didn't want my music to be unique to the US. I wanted Africans to hear it and know that South African music was still alive.

  Letta Mbulu

  Unique, Alive, Want

  Source: thequietus.com

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• People called rock & roll 'African music.' They called it 'voodoo music.' They said that it would drive the kids insane. They said that it was just a flash in the pan - the same thing that they always used to say about hip-hop.

  Little Richard

  Kids, Rocks, People

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• As far as being an African artist, my inspiration has been the fact that I'm a part of the generation that will put Nigerian African music on a global scale. It's been a long road for us, but I believe we're finally at that point where we can showcase our music to the world and get international recognition.

  Iceberg Slim

  Believe, Inspiration, Artist

  Meraki Mag Interview, www.merakiafrica.com. January 27, 2014.

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• I've been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I've been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit.

  Joseph Jarman

  Sound, Asian, Western Music

  Interview with Jason Gross, www.furious.com. October 1999.

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• Trying to be really dark and alienating just felt exhausting to me, so I started going back to the music that I grew up with, whether it was African music or pop music. It took me away from being overly self-conscious about what I was doing.

  St. Lucia

  Dark, Self, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.

  Serj Tankian

  Fans, Huge

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.

  St. Lucia

  New York, Growing Up, Kids

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I grew up singing Mexican music, and that's based on indigenous Mexican rhythms. Mexican music also has an overlay of West African music, based on huapango drums, and it's kind of like a 6/8 time signature, but it really is a very syncopated 6/8. And that's how I attack vocals.

  Linda Ronstadt

  Mexican, Singing, Signatures

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• I didn't want to try and borrow kudos from Indonesian culture. I was trying to get a fresh perspective on these instruments. I'm not doing a Paul Simon Gracelands and stealing all this African music and not give anyone any credit.

  Squarepusher

  Giving, Perspective, Trying

  Source: thequietus.com

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• My first introduction to African music was by my mother, who bought the 'Pata Pata' album by the great Miriam Makeba when it came out. Now that is an album. What a voice.

  Henry Rollins

  Mother, Voice, Albums

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• American audiences don't react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here.

  Rokia Traore

  Thinking, Festivals, Way

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

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• Symmetria by the Uccello Project is a gorgeous, instrumental and largely unclassifiable record. Best thought of as 'cinematic', each of the tracks conjures up a range of emotions and images, taking the listener on a beautiful journey. The layers of basses, guitars and percussion ebb and flow, drawing on jazz, folk, blues and African music, blending all the elements into one lovely album. Recommended.

  Steve Lawson

  Beautiful, Journey, Guitar

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