A Quote by Jonathan Batiste

I always want to be doing both to travel as a teacher and lecturer, and to be a musician. I think in this generation institutionalizing the art form and spreading it to the younger generation through education is really important for all artists to have some hand in. Right now in popular culture and the mainstream, it's not a big part at all. I think education by young artists talking to young people, not just older people talking to young people, it gives an experience never felt before. I think over the years it will do a lot for the music.
Over the years, I developed an extreme hostility towards the non-profit art organization gulag. I formed the opinion that it's actually a very sophisticated form of government suppression of creativity, particularly in young people. When I see the younger generation dragged into this and being told to write these statements and take these photos, define your work this way or that way, I think it's wrong. I think instead of paying any attention to politics, a great project for young artists is to attack and destroy the non-profits of our world.
I enjoy talking to young people, and talking to people about helping young people. That part is not a chore. It's pretty fun, and something I like to do because I think it's important.
I guess people don't think that young girls or young artists have opinions, but I'm so glad that there's artists like Lorde and Raury and Kehlani because they're showing other people that young people can have an opinion and a voice and do really well with it. I'm glad I can be one of those people.
Even very recently, the elders could say: 'You know, I have been young and you never have been old.' But today's young people can reply: 'You never have been young in the world I am young in, and you never can be.' ... the older generation will never see repeated in the lives of young people their own unprecedented experience of sequentially emerging change. This break between generations is wholly new: it is planetary and universal.
The radical is simply being given more room in the mainstream. And I think young people - I'm talking about the very young millennials - they are bored by so much so fast and have such fast big brains, that they won't digest lazy uninteresting work in the way my generation might have. This is a great opportunity for those on the fringe to be less on the fringe perhaps.
I keep thinking that history runs in cycles, and that some day certain large issues will come before the country again. There will be leaders that inspire young people. I don't think it means that it's over forever, but I'm getting pretty impatient. I'm hoping it comes soon, so that my young people can know that experience that we knew in the '60s, and that the World War II generation knew during the '40s.
The Big Music Project gives young people access to producers, managers, set designers, artists and a load of other industry insiders who are at top of their game. It can be difficult to know where to start and this project gives young people who are passionate about music, knowledge and hands on experience.
The younger generation forms a country of its own. It has no geographical boundaries. I've talked with young Hungarians in Budapest, with young Italians in Rome, with young Frenchmen in Paris, and with young people all over. ... These young people are going to do things. They are going to change things.
I think I've been able to witness Canadian hip-hop get a lot more respect from our own people. I think some of the artists that came before me were doing their thing but lacked a strong next generation of artists to help them capitalize.
If I was a young director starting off, there's so many tools at your disposal now to do things relatively inexpensively that it's a great time to learn your chops and do some cool music videos. If I started all over again, I'd still be doing music videos, I'd just be doing them very differently. It's very difficult for me to do them now, but for young kids out there that love music and want to tackle a different art form - and I do think music video is an art form - that's a very cool thing to do.
There's something odd about telling people, artists, that they need to work for free to be pure while you're sitting there getting a salary that ultimately is paid by a generation of young people going deeply into debt for their education.
I have this theory that people are actually really hungry for sonic space and understanding words, and I think that people are ready to look back and actually appreciate some of what came before. And then you really do have the entire movement that I'm just going to call feminist, because I am a feminist. I think the education of young girls and women about what came before has started and I think that the knowledge of Fanny is part of that.
I think that's an important lesson for young people who want to be artists: You have to find someone who believes in you and who will help you find that time where you don't have to think about a job but just making work. If I didn't have those people in my life, I wouldn't be in the position I'm in.
I don't think people are terribly interested in young artists who were doing interesting thing, but I don't think people are terribly interested in young artists.
I don't think there can ever be too many messages about AIDS. If you stop the education process, then people are going to think the problem is all over and done with. They'll think that it's OK to go and have sex again. Education is essential, especially among young people.
I think that young people understand me perfectly. I think that's the luckiest thing about my career, that I get older and they get younger, and it didn't stop with my generation.
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