A Quote by Taboo
Brazilian music has always been a part of us, but it's even more valuable now because of the sentiment or the theme of the actual song. So I feel like 'Street Livin'' is paying homage to what we started and it's touching on a lot of serious themes to DACA, immigration reform, prison control... all the things we address in the video.
Related Quotes
I don't feel that all the great songs have been written. I do feel that where we are now, certainly with rock & roll music, is that so much of it is variations on themes. But I think that it's one's particular creativity and individuality that comes out within that variation on a particular theme that makes a song great.
I feel like it had an impact, in that it started the attention that has been paid to what was happening. It started to get us into this whole conversation about prison reform, the whole bipartisan dialogue that's been happening over the past five, six years about this, where you have a Van Jones and a Newt Gingrich, and you have the Rick Perrys and so forth getting up and talking about the need to reform.
I've been touching instruments since the day I was born. My mother is Brazilian, and she listens to Brazilian music. My father was a musician, and I've seen pictures of him when he was in a band playing guitar and piano. He loved country music, Frank Sinatra, and stuff like that.
You have to be careful when it comes to copyrights, whether just sounding like or feeling like something is enough to say you violated their copyrights because there's a lot of music out there, and there's a lot of things that feel like other things that are influenced by other things. And you don't want to get into that thing where all of us are suing each other all the time because this and that song feels like another song.
Brazilian football has always been very much admired in Japan and, of course, after my participation and so many other Brazilians, it was like they created a new style of play in homage to Brazilian football.
What is interesting is that John Lewis actually got interested initially in the civil rights movement because of a comic book. So part of it, he's paying homage to this tradition that you can tell serious stories and talk about serious issues in graphic form.
We learnt a lot because we got in with real choreographers who tell you what they need from a song, because a song has to advance the story. Then real directors like Mike Nichols tell you where you can have 'B themes' and 'C themes', and we go oh yes, B themes and C themes! So we were taught in the finest school amongst the finest people. And also by the school of experience.
I get total creative control when I'm in the studio now to do what I want to do. If I feel like doing a song I'll do a song. The buzz has been great, in fact a lot of people hit me up now, they're seein me on hiphopgame.com with the journal and I'm just telling people my ideas. All I want to do is make good music at the end of the day.
"St. Lucia We Love" is actually a song produced by Stratosphere music (also St. Lucian). The CEO of Stratosphere music approached me and wanted me to produce a music video for this song which was already a hit in my country. I felt privileged to have been chosen to do such a video. So every time I went out to shoot a scene from the video, I would get a still shot from the scene to tease the public. The photo of the amazona versicolor is is an actual scene from the video which was released on St. Lucia's Independence day (22nd February, 2013).
If Republicans and Democrats alike truly believe DACA should stay and be a permanent part of immigration reform, then they should use their elected power to make it so.
The White Horse video which was directed by Marco Ovando started off with a biker theme. Once Ava Sanjurjo came in as stylist along with Marco & I it really took it's own shape. It was all very improvised but wound up paying homage to NY and night life. People say it reminds them of a Guess ad which I love!
Brazilian music has been a part of almost every record I've done, and I'd eventually like to record an entire album of Brazilian music.
I was focusing on sax while at Berklee, but then I started to play Brazilian choro and Colombian music. I was doing more folkloric stuff on the clarinet because it works better. Finally, I realized I was working more on the clarinet than the saxophone, and I started to feel more comfortable on it.
In terms of immigration, we're seeing a lot of Democrats and Republicans use the really elastic term, 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform,' and they don't totally understand what that means. For us in El Paso, it's part of a larger discussion about the nature of the border.
The music I'm playing now is the music I always imagined myself playing when I was a kid. It's been nice to use my instrument a bit more - play the guitar in a more fun way with riffs and stuff like that - rather than just propping up a whole song with a guitar and my vocals. There's so much more energy in the crowd as well; they've been bouncing around and having fun, and it's nice to feel like you're a part of something in a room rather than just performing for a crowd.
I didn't have song rights for the first video because I didn't know that it was going to do what it did. So for the second video, I decided better safe than sorry. It is a really gray area as to whether or not you even need song rights to make a video like that.
Related Authors
Ani DiFranco Quotes
American
Musician
Bob Dylan Quotes
American
Musician
Brian Eno Quotes
British
Musician
Bruce Springsteen Quotes
American
Musician
David Bowie Quotes
English
Musician
Drake Quotes
Canadian
Musician
Elton John Quotes
English
Musician
George Harrison Quotes
British
Musician
Henry Rollins Quotes
American
Musician
John Lennon Quotes
English
Musician
Madonna Ciccone Quotes
American
Musician
Moby Quotes
American
Musician
Nicki Minaj Quotes
American
Musician
Patti Smith Quotes
American
Musician
Thom Yorke Quotes
English
Musician
Tori Amos Quotes
American
Musician