A Quote by Kurtis Blow

Yeah when I was 7 or 8 my moms would have little parties, and I would play the music. — © Kurtis Blow
Yeah when I was 7 or 8 my moms would have little parties, and I would play the music.
People always say that music is a universal language. It was very, very true. We could show up anywhere with any people speaking different languages and we could just be like, "You want to play that song? Yeah, okay." We would usually want to play Latin American songs, and they would usually want to play Santana or Jimi Hendrix and stuff like that. So we would trade off. So yeah, we were able to make a lot of friends that way and meet a lot of local musicians. It was a great experience.
Oftentimes, even as a little kid, I would get up before anyone else. My brother would still be sleeping, my mom would still be sleeping, so I would literally play 'Monopoly' by myself. I would play board games; I would do things by myself.
Yeah, I shoot. I shot with my dad a little bit when I was little. He was a Marine, so it wasn't like he would take me to the ballet. We would go to a shooting range. It was the only thing he knew to teach his little girl how to do.
If anything as simple as child care was covered by the league or your organization, that would be life-changing for moms, especially when we're scraping pennies. Maybe we would have more moms in this league if something like that was there for us, but I feel like we're far from that.
My parents were part of a crowd that was attached to all the different navies stationed in Malta. When they would have parties in each other's houses, I would get taken along, and that's where I heard all this great music. I didn't distinguish particular styles; it was all music to me.
Irish music is guts, balls and feet music, yeah? It's frenetic dance music, yeah? Or it's impossibly sad like slow music, yeah? Yeah? And it also handles all sorts of subjects, from rebel songs to comical songs about sex, you know what I mean, yeah? Which I don't think people realize how much innuendo there is in Irish music.
One of the things I've heard musicians say that's true is, 'I would play for free. I would play music forever, but you have to pay me to travel.' I know we're always going to make music. The traveling part - that is the most wear and tear on any human.
And I would go on all these college tours. And I was thinking about where I would want to go. And at the end of each tour, I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you guys have any improv groups?'
Directors would tell me, 'We want you to play a character a little less complex than you are.' Yeah, sure. What they mean is, 'You're playing a dummy.'
My parents were really into music. They would play the Funkadelics, Parliament, OutKast; they would just play that all around the house. They'd also play Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, James Brown.
I would play music every day from the time I was about 4 or 5 years old. Every time I would go from one end of the house to the other, I would pass the piano and play a few notes.
I listened to my first comedy album in 6th grade. It was Bill Cosby. My brother and I would play it over and over on a Fisher Price record player. A friend in high school also introduced me to Richard Pryor. I wasn't writing material back then, but I would say funny stuff. I was good at making fun of people's moms. If I knew something personal about you, it would be used against you.
And we would play together, like fine musicians should, And it would sound like music, and the music would sound good. But in real life I'm stuck with that same old formula, me and my monophonic symphony, six string orchestra.
I would find myself, not necessarily always assigning these little bits of music for here or there, but all of a sudden something would fall into place and it would be exactly that.
As a little kid, I'd put on shows for my family. I would sing songs and play piano. I thought while growing up in high school that I would stick with music and try to make a career out of that. As I gave it an honest, real shot, I realized it was not for me.
I can remember times when we'd be having parties, and people would be dancing and everything and I would be sitting there in the middle doing calculus, just doing my little thing.
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