A Quote by Ishmael Reed

We not only grew up on Be-Bop; Be-Bop raised us. For my generation, Be-Bop came on like a light bulb going flash behind the eyes.For us, it was not only an intellectual movement, but a way of life. We walked, dressed, and rapped Be-Bop.

Ishmael Reed

Quote Topics

Behind Bulb Came Dressed Eyes Flash Generation Going Grew Grew Up Intellectual Life Light Light Bulb Like Movement My Generation Only Raised Up Us Walked Way

Quote Author

Ishmael Reed
American - Novelist
Born: February 22, 1938

I got really sick of playing just, like, 'Bop-bop-bop-bada-bop-bop-bada-rapa-pah.' Just playing that 190-beats-per-minute punk-rock songs, I didn't feel it anymore. And I always loved melody - when you looked back on those early records, there's always a hook buried in there somewhere.

John Rzeznik

A-bop-bop-a-loom-op-a-lop-bop-boom.

Little Richard

All I want to say to people, man, is, "Yo, you see me walking down the street and I got a little bop in my walk, don't think because I've got a bop in my walk I'm trying to be all that. The bop in my walk is because I'm just like you, man. I bop when I walk." Know what I'm saying? I'm proud. If you see me smiling, standing straight up, gold around my neck, it's not because I'm conceited. It's because I'm proud of what I achieved. I made this. I worked hard for this. That's all this is about.

LL Cool J

If a guy is gonna to play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.

Count Basie

'Cause it's jail, everyone thinks they're bad. So this one guy was like, 'What're you gonna do, 'Lean and Bop' for us?' I was cocky, I was like 'Oh yeah? It costs five racks to see me lean and bop, It costs five racks to see me lean and bop.' But deep down inside it was hurting. It's moments like that make me hate - I feel like I sold out.

J Hus

I think the people are just looking for freedom in music...There's a lot of she-bop she-bop going on out there. Maybe they're tired of that same old thing.

Rick James

I was washing dishes at the Greyhound bus station at the time and I said, 'Awap bop a lup bop a wop bam boom, take 'em out!'

Little Richard

It's just music. It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes. The beat in a bop band is with the music, against it, behind it. It pushes it. It helps it. Help is the big thing. It has no continuity of beat, no steady chug-chug. Jazz has, and that's why bop is more flexible.

Charlie Parker

Bop began with Jazz but one afternoon somewhere on a sidewalk maybe 1939, 1940, Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker or Thelonious Monk was walking past a men's clothing store on 42nd Street or South Main in L.A. and from a loudspeaker they suddenly heard a wild impossible mistake in jazz that could only have been heard inside their own imaginary head, and that is a new art. Bop.