Some people really trip on success or popularity. My friends would talk to me about that, about tripping on all this stuff, but you know what I tripped on? I started buying property.
The love of their country is with them only a mode of flattering its master; as soon as they think that master can no longer hear, they speak of everything with a frankness which is the more startling because those who listen to it become responsible...
I studied at a time when buildings were sterile things, and their creators were hands-off people - super-intelligent people, but you felt they didn't love the stuff buildings are made from.
A lot of our music came out of a lot of weird psychology and weird emotions. When you play the whole body of work, you get tossed all over the place. It's not easy listening. It's not even comfortable to listen to.
When I was recording music, I'd record all the parts myself, and I wouldn't let other people in; that's essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything.
When I was 3 or 4, I seemed to be bursting with music. They played Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra in the house, so I learned my vocabulary from song lyrics - I was literally singing before I was talking.
When people say, 'Your music was the music of the Seventies,' I say, 'So was discoteque.' The Seventies was also the highest peak of heavy metal. Pick a genre - they were all alive.
I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scen...
People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.
I've been playing music for over 20 years now. I started playing when I was 14 years old. To everyone who has said I was an overnight success... where have you been the last 20 years?
Listening to music for me is like homework. Music will give me enjoyment, but as soon as it's giving me that enjoyment, I want to analyse it, and then it becomes work. Why does it sound like that? How?... then I dissect it.
You would probably think that rock music is an urban phenomena, but the main reason for doing it in '68 was so that we could play music very loud any time of the day or night without getting complaints from the neighbours.
Feminism is a word that I identify with. The term has become synonymous with vitriolic man-hating but it needs to come back to a place where both men and women can embrace it. It is particularly important for women in developing countries.
As a kid, I was always mad - just noticing the women at Thanksgiving, running around the kitchen, while the men were watching football. For one, I don't want to cook, and for two, I hate football. I was stuck in the middle.
I still think of Columbia as one Rita Hayworth movie a year, or maybe one a year directed by Frank Capra in the '30s. To see how many really outstanding movies Columbia made, and all together, is kind of eye-opening.
[from trailer] Frank Lucas: See, ya are what ya are in this world. That's either one of two things: Either you're somebody, or you ain't nobody.
Frank Lucas: I don't care what you call it, put a choke-hold on the motherfucker and call it Blue Dog Shit.
Frank Lucas: You want to be like Nicky? Be super fly? You want to work for him? Cook for him? Share a jail cell with him?
We have almost a city has probably two or three hundred committees. Every committee is dealing with just one problem and has nothing to do with the other problems.
You have to look at yourself objectively. Analyze yourself like an instrument. You have to be absolutely frank with yourself. Face your handicaps, don't try to hide them. Instead, develop something else.
I do not feel certain until I have confronted my initial solution with other solutions - although in fact the first solution often proves to be the right one.
