A Quote by Cheo Hodari Coker
Harlem has always been the nexus of music, politics, culture, criminal figures.
Related Quotes
As long as black people preserve their culture in Harlem, Harlem will always be alive.
Since the '80s, Harlem has the place to go. Before the '80s, just as far as hip-hop go, Harlem has always been a strong point, fashion-wise, music-wise, all of that.
Music and visual performance have to influence each other. Designers and musicians have to be the nexus of all things pop culture, so I think about designers when I'm making music.
Jean Toomer is a phantom of the Harlem Renaissance. Pick up any general study of the literature written by Afro-Americans, and there is the name of Jean Toomer. In biographies and memoirs of Harlem Renaissance figures, his name is invoked as if he had been one of the sights along Lenox Avenue.
What the left ends up missing is that politics have always been at the heart of American culture; it's been a white identity that's been rendered invisible and neutral because it's seen as objective and universal. As a result, we don't pay attention to how whiteness is one among many racial identities, and that identity politics have been here since the get-go.
I'm sort of obsessed with Harlem. Just its history. My father did the music for a play called 'The Huey P. Newton Story,' and they did a lot of work in Harlem. So as a little girl, I spent a lot of time in Harlem Library.
I've always been tremendously interested in criminal law. It goes to a deep interest I have in prisons and the criminal element, and what we do as a society with it. I've always been touched by the idea of criminality.
In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity.
Harlem is really a melting pot for a lot of different people. When you look at Harlem - and I lived there almost five years - most of the people who live in Harlem are transplants. They migrate to Harlem from another place.
I was a kid who liked art and theater and dance and music, but if you lived in Harlem, high culture was somewhere else, and it wasn't black.
Culture has always been more important than politics. Sometimes culture is a mirror that reflects what is; sometimes it's a search-light pointing the way to what will be.
We didn't sit around the dining table talking about Madam Walker, but the silverware that we used every day had her monogram on it and our china for special occasions had been Madam Walker's china... and the baby grand piano on which I learned to read music had been in A'Lelia Walker's apartment in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance.
In the French culture, they talk politics. I didn't find it was part of our culture to have political arguments at the table. My husband's family will get into major politics, and it's not an aggressive thing. It's so interesting and you learn so much, whether it's Right or Left, and that to me has been really great.
If you read a lot of Chinese literature, there has always been very strong women figures - warriors, swordswomen - who defended honor and loyalty with the men. So, it's not new to our culture - it's always been very much a part of it. It's good that now the Western audience would have a different image of the Chinese women.
I am afraid of what is happening in the West. In a way, the link between art and politics is about to snap. Music and politics, it seems, are increasingly considered to be separate domains. Music is about making peace, not conflict, they say. And, therefore, it is best to do what is considered normal and uncontroversial. Increasingly, accepting the status quo is a precondition for being considered entertainment, while protest culture is grouped alongside politics.
Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.
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