A Quote by Greg Cipes

I don't watch TV. Only while I'm doing it do I see it, really. So I don't know anything. I only know old reggae artists. So that's my thing. Old reggae artists and martial arts.
On 'Black Lightning' I have a stunt double who's a lot younger than me. The fighting style on the show is heavily martial arts-based, and I know boxing; I don't know martial arts. I also have a really bad knee, and he's been doing martial arts since he was 6 years old, so I'm not thinking, 'No, I can do that! I can make that look cool!'
One of the first places where I started to respond to song lyrics was in reggae music. A lot of what I was responding to were references to the Old Testament. It was not that I had to adapt the lyrics to the sound. Reggae and the Old Testament are bound up together. There wasn't anything that I had to do.
You know, it's such an insult to actual martial artists that I say that I do martial arts.
Reggae music don't really focus on one thing, you know. If reggae music is speaking about the struggle of people, and the suffering, it don't mean black people. It mean people in general.
I grew up with reggae. Reggae is like family. I know it, and there's a type of love and familiarity, but sometimes you want to hang out with other people.
I feel positive about what I do. And, whoever is doing reggae, they have to have positive words and no negativity. They have to be positive. Yes, if you call it reggae, and it is negative words, it is not reggae.
I grew up in a very small town, on a farm. There was not even a TV in my house at that time. I didn't have much connection with the outside world and couldn't see martial arts. When I was 10 or 12, that's when we got our first TV. We only had maybe two channels. At 16 years old, I remember watching Marco Ruas on TV.
I wanted to know what exactly martial arts is. When you look at martial arts films, the later ones became more and more exaggerated. It's like, wow, is martial arts only a show?
I did martial arts since I was 10 years old, and I've got as much love for the movies as I have for martial arts, so when I was 18 years old, I started studying performing arts with the eye of getting into the film industry and went to drama school after that.
The really cool thing about reggae music is that I can get away with saying spiritual things as a reggae influenced artist that I couldn't get away with saying as a rock artist. Reggae has such spiritual roots and people almost expect to hear spiritual things.
As a 4-year-old, I saw two men competing in the ring, and I thought it was martial arts. I asked my parents if I could do martial arts. So, I was 5 or 6-years-old, and I was doing karate and jiu-jitsu. Later on, I started kickboxing. Then, it just progressed. I did a little bit of everything, but predominantly, I did kickboxing.
I've always been into music. I used to DJ. I used to mix reggae and that. I used to be into reggae hard. Well first it was rap, then reggae, then rap again, then rap and reggae. But I was always DJing out my window for the whole estate. Everyone used to sit outside and all and listen. And I used to be running rhythms in that.
I feel good to know that they recognize the potential of reggae music. And they are exposing it to the world, letting the world hear how beautiful reggae music can be.
If you look at reggae and dancehall artists in general, there isn't really a big success story. A Shabba Ranks or a Yellowman might have a hit, but there's never a follow up. There's no consistency.
I'm a martial artist. That's what I've been doing since I was three years old, and fighting since i was 15 and that's all I know how to do. The money is just a bonus. It's a bonus for me. I think my real job is teaching martial arts, it's what I love to do.
You have to be logical and use international words so people can relate to reggae music. I'm the inventor of the word reggae music. I'm the one who coined the word reggae. So, whatever I put out on my label - my label called D & F Music - it has to be positive.
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