I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture. — Etta James
African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West. — Miriam Makeba
Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow. — Nina Simone
Jazz is the favorite music [of America]. It is a type of music invented by [American] Blacks to please their primitive tendencies and desire for noise. — Sayyid Qutb
First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that. — Carlos Santana
If you’re from the hood and you black, you’re going to have some type of music in your life. — 21 Savage
I would like to involve myself in some black music. I would like to do some blues and some gospel music. I want to try stuff from other genres and try to widen my musical base. — Greg Lake
You cannot sing African music in proper English — Fela Kuti
I would think, to me, growing up in the south, growing up with all the gospel music, singing in the church and having that rhythm and blues - the blues background was my big inspiration. — Jackie DeShannon
Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say. — Mahalia Jackson
Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music. — George Gershwin
Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the most thrilling emotions which the human heart may experience. — James Weldon Johnson
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand. — Stevie Wonder
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music. — Nina Simone
The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience. — Henry Louis Gates
Short African American Music Quotes
The blues will always be because the blues are the roots of all American music. — Willie Dixon
Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul — Plato
Why are black folks singing Amazing Grace which is a song about a white slaver's conversion? — Dick Gregory
I listen to gospel music. — Mary J. Blige
Music is an outburst of the soul. — Frederick Delius
My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being. — John Coltrane
I love classic rock, rock and roll, that's the top notch. I love soul - bluesy music as well. — Haley Reinhart
Music is the soul of language. — Max Heindel
Irving Berlin has no place in American music -- he is American music. — Jerome Kern
Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains. — Paul Whiteman
African American Music Image Quotes
Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go through life's journey, remember that the black keys also makes music.
African Music Quotes
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
I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had. — Berry Gordy
There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste. — Sarah Vaughan
Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going. — Wes Montgomery
It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do. — Marcus Miller
Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.
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
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. — Duke Ellington
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
Congolese rumba was so huge in Africa that everybody was inspired by it. But my African roots brought me this music. In every African family, parties in Brussels, we used to listen to this kind of music. And salsa music as well. — Stromae
African American Culture Quotes
Violence is black children going to school for 12 years and receiving 6 years' worth of education. — Julian Bond
You should always respect what you are and your culture because if your art is going to mean anything, that is where it comes from. — Romare Bearden
To reaffirm the statement on the choosing of my identity, I come from two beautiful cultures which I have embraced, bridged, balanced, and identify with. I am proud to be who I am as a Dine' (Navajo) and Nahilii (African American) woman. Hozho', , & blessings — Radmilla Cody
The Afro-American experience is the only real culture that America has. Basically, every American tries to walk, talk, dress and behave like African Americans. — Hugh Masekela
The African-American community still needs to come together as one and stand up for rights of the people and of what's happening in their culture, their community. — Ziggy Marley
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies. — Ishmael Reed
Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position. — Bernice Johnson Reagon
People ask me if I miss the States. I miss African Americans. But not the U.S. government or all the things they put me through. I miss African American culture, our speech, dance and cooking. — Assata Shakur
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
African American Quotes
I have written a song that says: If you ever lose someone dear to you, never say the words, "They're gone," and they'll come back. — Prince
If you can be the best, then why not try to be the best? — Garrett Morgan
Fighting is a sport; if you're not humble it's going to bring humbleness to you. — Mike Tyson
Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.
It doesn't matter how strong your opinions are. If you don't use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem. — Coretta Scott King
Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. — Mae Jemison
Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else. — Maya Angelou
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionarys life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime. — Angela Davis
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. — Malcolm X
In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe. — Michael Jackson
Deal with yourself as a individual, worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way. — Nikki Giovanni
African American History Quotes
Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations. — Mae Jemison
We have a wonderful history behind us. ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'. — Carter G. Woodson
My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you. — Paul Robeson
People are like Music, some speak the truth and other are just noise
The potential for greatness lives within us all. — Wilma Rudolph
Music is the emotional life of most people.
Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face. — Carol Moseley Braun
At no time within the last five-hundred years can one point to a single instance of the Negro as a race of haters. — Marcus Garvey
I am the dream and the hope of the slave — Maya Angelou
I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up. — Rosa Parks
American Music Quotes
The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization. — Fredric Jameson
The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues. — Willie Dixon
The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Imamu Amiri Baraka Jones
One good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain.
The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Amiri Baraka
When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to. — Don McLean
My advice would be if you want to pursue a career in the music business, don't. — Simon Cowell
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Regarding the current Broadway revival of The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: There will always be those who sniff that the show is "feel good"-but, oh, it feels good to feel good. And the main reason The Music Man feels so good is that it is good-a great American musical. — Meredith Willson
If you surveyed a hundred typical middle-aged Americans, I bet you'd find that only two of them could tell you their blood types, but every last one of them would know the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies. — Dave Barry
We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food. — Francis Ford Coppola
I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music, they just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male. — Kurt Cobain
African Culture Quotes
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
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
There's an African proverb: 'When death finds you, may it find you alive.' Alive means living your own damned life, not the life that your parents wanted, or the life some cultural group or political party wanted, but the life that your own soul wants to live. — Michael Meade
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain
Thousands of years ago, civilizations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous. — Haile Selassie
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
My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. — Cornel West
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
It's obvious that the rest of the world loves high African culture - African culture, period. — Hugh Masekela
I majored in directing. However, I did spend some time at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, so I am somewhat well-versed in African Studies. — Chadwick Boseman
On the Iberian Peninsula in the Spanish-Portuguese area, southern France that high state of a culture existed there because of Africans known as Moors had come there and brought it there. — Malcolm X
African American Women Quotes
I believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than believe, to inquire rather than to affirm. — Septima Poinsette Clark
Don't settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that's in us. — Angela Bassett
In the dark times, if you have something to hold on to, which is yourself, you'll survive. — Whoopi Goldberg
You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you. — Josephine Baker
I've always believed that I could do whatever I set my mind to do. — Alice Coachman
What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else. — Lucille Clifton
I'm convinced that we Black women possess a special indestructible strength that allows us to not only get down, but to get up, to get through, and to get over. — Janet Jackson
Don't let anything stop you. There will be times when you'll be disappointed, but you can't stop. Make yourself the best that you can make out of what you are. The very best. — Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
I'm realizing, you don't need to change anything about yourself. This is who you are, and it's okay. That's daring. — Uzo Aduba
The virtue of female slaves is wholly at the mercy of irresponsible tyrants, and women are bought and sold in our slave markets, to gratify the brutal lust of those who bear the name of Christians. — Sarah Moore Grimke
African American Love Quotes
A moment of anger can destroy a lifetime of work, whereas a moment of love can break barriers that took a lifetime to build. — Leon Brown
It doesn't matter what you all think, what you all say about me, because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face, my family that I love, that's all that really matters to me. — Marshawn Lynch
Great men cultivate love...only little men cherish a spirit of hatred — Booker T. Washington
Listen to yourself, not the noise of the world. Only you know what is right for you. — Leon Brown
I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. — Harriet Tubman
Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Embrace struggle... It is your greatest teacher. — Russell Simmons
Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. — Toni Morrison
Sometimes we have to lose our way to find out what we really want, for we often ignore our needs until we are lost. — Leon Brown
Rock and roll is about having a good time, so no matter
where you are right now blast some music and forget
about lifes problems. — Andy Biersack
How you act, walk, look and talk is all part of Hip Hop culture. And the music is colorless. Hip Hop music is made from Black, brown, yellow, red and white. — Afrika Bambaataa
Where you are right now blast some music and forget. — Andy Biersack
Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics. — Michael Eric Dyson
I was the only punk rocker at my high school. And there were at least a handful of black kids who liked hip-hop. Both were kind of the new music of the day, and it was lonely being the only punk. — Rick Rubin
With the White Stripes we were trying to trick people into not realising we were playing the blues. We did not want to come off like white kids trying to play black music from 100 years ago so a great way to distract them was by dressing in red, white and black. — Jack White
Motown was about music for all people – white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone. — Berry Gordy
The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre. — Robin Gibb
I applied for a scholarship to Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. I knew I was good enough, but they turned me down. And it took me about six months to realize it was because I was black. I never really got over that jolt of racism at the time. — Nina Simone
Look at the piano. You'll notice that there are white notes and black notes. Figure out the difference between them and you'll be able to make whatever kind of music you want. — George Gershwin
African American History Month Quotes
Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us. — Susan L. Taylor
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise. — Maya Angelou
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man. — Frederick Douglass
Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land. — Cornel West
Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can. — Arthur Ashe
American means white, and Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen. — Toni Morrison
I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. — Zora Neale Hurston
I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is my hope that as we commemorate Black History Month in the future, we will continue to celebrate the many achievements and rich culture of African-Americans. — Eliot Engel
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
I was born with music inside me — Ray Charles
My own personal theory is that all popular music, in whatever form it is, to me, it all comes from Africa. Whether it's filtered through America or whatever - African-American. But I still think there's something in that roots music that's very, very African, and I think that's what unites people. — Paul Weller
Ray Charles' revolutionary approach to music was also reflected in his politics and his deep and abiding commitment to Martin Luther King and the plight of African-Americans. Ray Charles may not have been on the front lines, but he put his money where his mouth was. — Diane Watson
Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time. — Bobby McFerrin
Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz. — Cassandra Wilson
I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music. — Ahmet Ertegun
I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence. — Maya Angelou
From politics and business to music and food to culture, African-Americans have helped to shape our state's colourful past and its future. — Mary Landrieu
Music is the universal language. — Swizz Beatz
I used to work in the cotton fields a lot when I was young. There were a lot of African Americans working out there. A lot of Mexicans - the blacks and the whites and the Mexicans, all out there singing, and it was like an opera in the cotton fields, and I can still hear it in the music that I write and play today. — Willie Nelson
I'd been listening to African-American music since the first record I ever bought, which was by Sam Cooke. And it sounds more like my private thoughts that I never thought I would be able to articulate - I never thought I would be able to express publicly. — David Toop
African American music can't happen in Germany or in Italy or in Mumbai. If America disappeared off the face of the Earth today, the greatest single cultural loss would be blues, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, rock-and-roll. — David Simon
Anyone who watches a lot of television, or listens to pop music, is familiar with a certain vision of America. If not exactly colorblind, this America is one in which different races easily interact, in which a white person might have an Asian boss, Hispanic stepson, or African-American frenemy. — Wesley Morris
My audience went, 'Wait, why is she singing jazz? What's going on?' And then they went, 'Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.' And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country. — Lady Gaga
What I consider to be the barometer for what is a rock artist and what is not, is somebody who has a certain element of blues, even a hint of soul or blues music, derivative of African-American blues, folk, spiritual, or gospel. — Ian Astbury
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
And different traditions stress different - so then there's that. I talked to an African American who says before she goes into an interracial church, she sits in her car and she listens to gospel music to get her fill, and she goes into an interracial church where they don't do gospel music, and she's ready to accept the other sorts of ways of worshipping. So there's that. — Michael Emerson
What city has given the world more in terms of American culture than New Orleans? There is none. Not New York. Not L.A. Not Chicago. Not anywhere, in the sense that African American music has gone around the world twenty times over, and it's continuing to evolve. It is our greatest cultural export. — David Simon
Country music is the combination of African and European folk songs coming together and doing a little waltz right here in the American south. They came together at some cotillion, and somebody snuck a black person into the room, and he danced with a white lady, and music was born. — Ketch Secor
What I want to do is basically tell my generation's story about how music and culture helped affect a generation, and a generation that's so profound, that it went on to elect the first African-American president. — Steve Stoute
The good and bad are all tangled up together. American popular music is loved around the world because of its African rhythm. But that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for slavery. — Pete Seeger
He revolutionized music videos. Before Michael Jackson, MTV refused to play African-American artists. — Spike Lee
It is a cultural tradition that makes New Orleans what it is. It also represents the roots of American music and an important part of the African-American community in New Orleans. It unites people in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. It is absolutely critical to continue. — Bill Taylor
Michael Jackson fundamentally altered the terms of the debate about African American music. — Michael Eric Dyson
Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it's all African-American music. — Johnny Otis
New Orleans is of such key importance to American music because historical factors combined to make it the strongest center of African musical practice in the United States, and, cliches aside, that practice really did travel up the Mississippi and did spread overland. — Ned Sublette
I know I’m an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I’m not a jazz musician. I’m not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It’s in between these areas. — Anthony Braxton
I was a weird kid. I shouldve been gay because I listened to a lot of Broadway musicals. I dont know why Im not gay. I listen to a lot of jazz and world music, like African or Cuban music. Something that has vitality to it. A lot of the American stuff just feeds on itself. — Frank Oz
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