Top 1200 African Music Quotes & Sayings

We deliberately used elements from Brazilian music and from African and Asian music. Now people can hear that but then it sounded so abstract, they couldn't hear it.

I've always been interested in any kind of great music, and African music is, I think, the source of it all.

My own personal theory is that all popular music, in whatever form it is, to me, it all comes from Africa. Whether it's filtered through America or whatever - African-American. But I still think there's something in that roots music that's very, very African, and I think that's what unites people.

What you have to understand is that blues... it's in a line from the oldest forms of African music. If you're playing it like it's an echo of the past, it would be a lot less exciting, but this music lives today.

New Orleans had a great tradition of celebration. Opera, military marching bands, folk music, the blues, different types of church music, ragtime, echoes of traditional African drumming, and all of the dance styles that went with this music could be heard and seen throughout the city. When all of these kinds of music blended into one, jazz was born.

Congolese rumba was so huge in Africa that everybody was inspired by it. But my African roots brought me this music. In every African family, parties in Brussels, we used to listen to this kind of music. And salsa music as well.

Well, Smoke n' Mirrors has very much a world music flavor and it doesn't park itself in one country. It borrows heavily from the Brazilian angle, which is dear to my heart, and I recorded several albums with that flavor. Probably even more so than the Brazilian flavor, there's an African, South African and West African influence and on a couple of other tracks there's some Latin flavor and there's some Indian tables on one track, all centered around my jazz guitar and acoustic guitars, and very much a Lee Ritenour sound.

My training in music has been very eclectic - as first a flute player from classical chamber music to jazz, Greek, Brazilian and African music to contemporary concert music.

The southward advance of native African farmers with Central African crops halted in Natal, beyond which Central African crops couldn't grow - with enormous consequences for the recent history of South Africa.

I don't know much about pop music, and we sample music from all different cultures. I was trained in West African dance, so my sense of rhythm when I move is obviously informed by that, and I obviously sing in Portuguese.

The idea of a hypnotic riff as the prime mover of a piece of music has been around for a long time, whether you're talking about the Delta blues or music from Middle Eastern and African cultures.

It's great to see Latino music coming to the mainstream, but at the same time, there are also a lot more styles to explore: African music, Indian music, Chinese music.

My music is really fun music, with some pan-African and pan-American influences.

We know that the African regimes, many African regimes have failed their people and many Africans want regime change, and there are a lot of African leaders who make promises but don't carry them out. I mean, the progress - I mean, it is noble for the rich countries to help Africa, but then the question is: What are African leaders themselves doing to help their own people?

Classical music can be catchy, so can African instrumental guitar music. It's not just pop songs that are catchy. Rhythms can be catchy, too.

When it comes to African Americans and African American actors, Hollywood has always felt that if you can make us laugh, that's fine, but we don't need to see you do a 'Schindler's List,' where there's no jokes or music or comedic through-line.

Sometimes you can't fight change, because you're a part of it, and I feel that in the context of these films that are happening now, there is a kind of change coming in terms of how history is represented on film, and the African, and the African-American and British African experience.

Any staffing changes that disproportionately cut the number of African Americans at CNN - intentionally or otherwise - are an affront to the African American journalism community and to the African American community as a whole.

There has been a struggle to reclaim the African self. That struggle has been on the part of a minority of dedicated African-Americans who never gave up our African identity at no time during our stay here.

After Nigeria, we are the second biggest black African nation. We are the headquarters of the African Union. We are the only African country that has never been colonized. This is perhaps the last surviving African civilization.

I've been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I've been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit.

I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.

As far as being an African artist, my inspiration has been the fact that I'm a part of the generation that will put Nigerian African music on a global scale. It's been a long road for us, but I believe we're finally at that point where we can showcase our music to the world and get international recognition.

You say 'African music' and you think 'tribal drumming.' But there's a lot of African music that's like James Brown, and a lot, too, that sounds very Hispanic.

The African people and tribal chiefs are hospitable, and African music and dances are invigorating.

As a youngster, my parents made me aware that all that was from the African Diaspora belonged to me. So I came in with Caribbean music, African music, Latin music, gospel music and blues.

There's this kind of dialogue between African music and dance music, especially Moroccan stuff, because it's kind of ceremonial and has built-in repetition.

One of the things that made the Black Muslim movement grow was its emphasis upon things African. This was the secret to the growth of the Black Muslim movement. African blood, African origin, African culture, African ties. And you'd be surprised - we discovered that deep within the subconscious of the black man in this country, he is still more African than he is American.

Flamenco is connected with so many types of music. It has Jewish culture inside, Arabian culture inside, Russian culture inside, Spanish culture inside. It's linked to African music too, because African music has the 'amalgama' rhythms you can find in flamenco. You can find everything in flamenco. That's why it's so beautiful.

I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.

I think there's no way of avoiding the South African or African influence from coming into my music, just because I spent 19 years of my life there. Being a kid, my early musical experiences were there.

I was always drawn to gospel music and the roots of African-American music. It's the foundation of rock and roll.

Jazz was the beginning of rhythm music, which developed into rock and roll. But what the jazz musicians lost because they were so far from their homeland was the intricate rhythms of African music.

American audiences don't react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here.

One of my dreams is to expand and make sure African music and Afro Beats music is really on the map. I would like to be a contribution to that success.

You cannot sing African music in proper English

My mother is half-French, half-Malagasy, so I've been listening to African music, like Malian and Congolese music, since I was a child.

I just wanted to sing, and I didn't want my music to be unique to the US. I wanted Africans to hear it and know that South African music was still alive.

I'm playing deep African music.

The music in Haiti is all tied up in voodoo and African rhythm, and so there's this funny thing: go to a voodoo ceremony, and then go to a Catholic church and tell me which music you liked better, to which one the music is more integral.

I had experiences or exposure to music in church. I went to a church, it was very unique. It was a predominantly African American Catholic church. So they would have - one mass would be traditional church music, and then the other mass would be gospel music.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

We do not have a South African as a member of the African Commission. The President of the Commission comes from Mali, the Deputy comes from Rwanda and then we have got all these other members, ordinary commissioners. There is no South African there. And the reason, again, for that is not because we didn't have South Africans who are competent.

I base myself in African-derived music. Blues is one of the modern forms of African music.

I haven't really ever seen a big budget Hollywood film with African music. Most of the time, it's just Hollywood's perception of what African music is.

What I love about African-African music is how unselfconscious it is in so many ways.

Trying to be really dark and alienating just felt exhausting to me, so I started going back to the music that I grew up with, whether it was African music or pop music. It took me away from being overly self-conscious about what I was doing.

Denys Cowan and Dwayne Turner's visions of Wakanda as an ersatz African Epcot Center opened my eyes to the unexploited possibilities; these men, both of whom are African American, together with writer Peter B. Gillis, created an African Asgard of sorts, and I just went, 'Oh, my.'

Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.

I would find myself being inspired by things that I've heard as a kid: Nigerian music or African music, some French music or some Jamaican music. When it's time for music to be made, it's almost like my ancestors just come into me and then it's them.

I like to listen to African music; I like to listen to Brazilian music that's not just Choro. I love to listen to Radiohead, I like to listen to James Brown - any music.

I grew up singing Mexican music, and that's based on indigenous Mexican rhythms. Mexican music also has an overlay of West African music, based on huapango drums, and it's kind of like a 6/8 time signature, but it really is a very syncopated 6/8. And that's how I attack vocals.

I am very proud to be African. I want to defend African people, and I want to show to the world that African players can be as good as the Europeans and South Americans.

The art, the greatness of the music, the experience of the music is what I'm about. I think most African artists have destroyed their artistry by commercialization, and I don't want to belong to that bag.

A way to make new music is to imagine looking back at the past from a future and imagine music that could have existed but didn't. Like East African free jazz, which as far as I know does not exist.

I did not like that name "world music" in the beginning. I think that African music must get more respect than to be put in a ghetto like that. We have something to give to others. When you look to how African music is built, when you understand this kind of music, you can understand that a lot of all this modern music that you are hearing in the world has similarities to African music. It's like the origin of a lot of kinds of music.

Michael Jackson fundamentally altered the terms of the debate about African American music. Remember, he was a chocolate, cherubic-faced genius with an African American halo. He had an Afro halo. He was a kid who was capable of embodying all of the high possibilities and the deep griefs that besieged the African American psyche.

What's really good is African drum music.

The music that I listen to the most is probably world music, whether it's from African or South America or all over.

There is a tendency just to talk about foreign investors. Over 80 per cent of new investment in the South African economy is South African and therefore the engagement of the South African investor is also a critical part of this process.