A Quote by Kano

I don't see myself as a political artist, but certain issues mean a lot to me. — © Kano
I don't see myself as a political artist, but certain issues mean a lot to me.
I don't know if I even consider myself a very political person. I have always had strong beliefs on important social issues. Politics have politicized social issues, but I don't know if social issues are in fact political. If anything, they are more human issues than they are political issues.
The producing side is always a hard thing for me. I look at Flying Lotus and see producers dropping instrumentals, and I think I should do it myself. I just try to be an artist for myself. That way, it's a lot easier.
I always worked as an individual artist even when Group Material asked me to join the group. There are certain things that I can do by myself that I would never be able to do with Group Material. First of all, they are a totally democratic entity and although you learn a lot from it, and it's very moving, it's very exacting, everything has to be by consensus, which is the beauty of it, but it is much more work. It's worth it 100%. But as an individual artist there are certain things that I want to bring out and express, and the collaborative practice is not conducive to that.
Is it the responsibility of the colored artist or the ethnic artist to create works that are designed to exist in opposition to a certain political structure?
I'm not trying to say something super complicated. I allow myself to say certain things that mean a lot to me.
I'm not the greatest communicator. I kind of internalize a lot. See, I just said I need to be quiet, but that's not the kind of communication I mean. I mean expressing myself or even standing up for myself. I can sometimes be very passive.
I mean, it's fun for us to talk about issues. You know, there's no one issue we spend a lot of time on probably, because he gets to do that all day with somebody else who's a lot more expert at issues than I am.
I'd say it's okay to be political and to be a writer. Those streams can be separate, and they can be connected; for me, they're both. Life is political, and I'm interested in my community and in a lot of issues - some of them American, some global.
I see myself as a storyteller. So, when I read something, I see the story, and I see it on screen, in my head, in a certain way. I always want to see it and see me in it.
I feel like I partly came to writing through being in college during the start of the Iraq war, and knowing that those issues mattered lot to me, and wanting to go see for myself.
Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
I don't consider myself a political artist, but I am political just by nature of being a woman.
I mean, in many ways, you know, I felt very connected to Ian (Dury) on, on a lot of levels. I mean, politically, & sort of, socially, our, kind of, social backgrounds are quite similar in many ways, as well as our kind of artistic endeavors. So there were many, many things that sort of chimed in for me, and kind of made me feel very instinctive about playing him, and, and although, there was sort of a certain amount of impression involved, actually, there's a lot of myself in the role.
I play piano and guitar and I do write my own stuff so to a certain extent I know what I want to do in regards to music. But I'm still finding out what kind of music is my favourite kind to listen to, never mind do myself so I've got a lot of time to find out myself and develop myself as an artist.
Let me see: art and activism. I can always fall back on, "the question should be, what isn't political? Everything you do is political, even if it's abstract. You're making a political statement even if it's unwittingly." I think so much of art is unconscious anyway, the artist doesn't know the real reason they're doing it. They're just kind of going along with it intuitively.
I feel like 2013 was one giant snowball of me being confused with my place in life and within the group. A lot of it was self-confidence issues, a lot of outside issues, and a lot of me questioning the future of what I was doing. And my mistake was letting all that influence me so that I wasn't the best I could be in life!
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!