Top 1200 African Music Quotes & Sayings - Page 4

Do I think police chiefs, many of which are African-American or Hispanic, wake up and say, 'Let's systemically oppress African-American communities?' No, I don't. Are there instances in which that happens? I'm sure there are.

Journalists become candidates for cardiac arrest when they see or hear an African American disagreeing with an African American. We would become inauthentic if we did not have disagreements with this president.

What moved us was not so much what would it do for South Africa, but there has been a great keenness on the Continent that the location of the Pan African Parliament must add to its credibility. And, so we said, fine, it's a contribution to this process of the democratisation of the African Continent.

With domestic adoption, you get a form, you fill it out, and there are these boxes: African-American, African-American and Hispanic, and you check the boxes that you're comfortable with. Race is completely open in that regard.

I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.

The toughest challenge I faced came right at the beginning of my career with 'Blood Knot,' which was trying to convince South African audiences that South African stories also had a place on the stage.

Not only do African students deserve excellent universities, they deserve good elementary and secondary schools, too - and then, to have access to ongoing vocational and job training to ensure their skills remain as relevant as possible to African organizations.

When you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth, giving opportunities to other people, it's only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.

African-American women who develop breast cancer are more likely to die from the disease than White women of the same age. Survival rates are worse among African-Americans for colon, prostate and ovarian cancers as well.

Out of 30 years of Second City I was probably the third African-American with the main stage cast. I was surprised when I first heard that. I think part of the reason that improvisation has never been popular with African-Americans is that it isn't popular in the inner cities.

The whole structure of African government, as far back as we know, was based on tyranny. One guy ran the show. Chiefs like Chaka and Mzilikazi committed terrible atrocities. That is the tradition from which modern African rulers spring. It won't change easily overnight.

The acceptance of the facts of African-American history and the African-American historian as a legitimate part of the academic community did not come easily. Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact.

In a lot of African music, the singers are just singing whatever they feel at the time - because the instrumentation is repetitive, they can come and go as they please. That's how we approach it. Not verse-chorus-verse.

It was a free-for-all; the BBC wouldn't play anything so we had pirate radio playing the African-American music and the Beatles and greats like Howlin' Wolf and Robert Johnson and Motown's Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Otis Redding.

My advice to African leaders is to make sure that if, in fact, China is putting in roads and bridges, number one, that they are hiring African workers; number two, that the roads don't just lead from the mine to the port to Shanghai.

Going to Morocco was massive; that's where I really found music which had the African syncopation and swing mixed with Arabic strains, and together they had this transporting, bittersweet quality.

A genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.

The joy is actually in the music. It's the music that supports you and tells you what to do. It tells you how to fill the music. You don't have to be shy about feeling the music when you're singing. If you believe in music-the power of music-the music will support you and take you to another dimension.

So for everybody who allows themselves to be separated from me because I said 'African' instead of 'Nubian' or 'Black' or 'Kemet' or 'original' or 'Israelite,' don't be so foolish. I say 'African' because the continent of Africa is the land from which we all originate. It is the word that we are most familiar with right now.

Getting into the banjo and discovering that it was an African-American instrument, it totally turned on its head my idea of American music - and then, through that, American history.

The reason that I like to use classical myths as models is because African American writers and African American stories are usually understood as occurring in some kind of vacuum - because of slavery.

What I consider to be the barometer for what is a rock artist and what is not, is somebody who has a certain element of blues, even a hint of soul or blues music, derivative of African-American blues, folk, spiritual, or gospel.

African Americans, in particular, saw their cumulative wealth crash. They used to have 10 cents on the dollar of the average white family. That 10 cents on the dollar that the African American family used to have crashed down to 5 cents on the dollar, given the focus of predatory lending on the African American community and the degree to which they were really devastated by the foreclosure crisis. So yeah, I think there is a lot of disappointment out there.

African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.

There are a lot of chapters to the banjo's history. Part of it are the roots in Africa, where it's a more primitive instrument. Then it comes to the United States where it morphs into the slave music that they created here, which was very African in origin.

Music is my life. Music runs through my veins. Music inspires me. Music is a part of me. Music is all around us. Music soothes me. Music gives me hope when I lose faith. Music comforts me. Music is my refuge.

Funny enough though, despite what Donald Trump has to say and the way African-American people are portrayed so often in media, African-American people can have a leaning to be very conservative.

I didn't want to try and borrow kudos from Indonesian culture. I was trying to get a fresh perspective on these instruments. I'm not doing a Paul Simon Gracelands and stealing all this African music and not give anyone any credit.

Somehow, someway, for some people there's an automatic assumption that a mayor who is African-American or some other elected official has to support another African-American.

So for everybody who allows themselves to be separated from me because I said "African" instead of "Nubian" or "Black" or "Kemet" or "original" or "Israelite," don't be so foolish. I say "African" because the continent of Africa is the land from which we all originate. It is the word that we are most familiar with right now.

I traveled to a library in South Africa called ILAM (International Library of African Music), which has a collection of about 500 different instruments that don't really exist anymore.

So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.

Obamanomics, his imposition of European-style socialism is not working for African-Americans. It is not working for Latinos and African-Americans.

I grew up in an African household, so lots of chicken, lots of rice. We ate Jollof rice, a very West African dish.

I have seen African countries negotiate bilaterally and within the WTO. African countries come to the WTO prepared and defend their interests with vigour.

As players of instruments, it is our duty to reach out and give light to those in the dark in whatever way that we can. All my actions are a fulfilment of all the African music genres - I'm only trying to maintain the culture and the tradition. I am a musician.

China has established friendship with many African countries, and is opening itself up to Africa and providing assistance. It is cooperating with African countries on an equal basis and has no desire to colonize Africa.

As a matter of fact, the African Union itself estimated that every year corruption alone costs Africa $148 billion. If African leaders could cut that in half, they'll find more money than what Tony Blair is trying to raise for them.

Writing in African languages became a topic of discussion in conferences, in schools, in classrooms; the issue is always being raised - so it's no longer "in the closet," as it were. It's part of the discussion going on about the future of African literature. The same questions are there in Native American languages, they're there in native Canadian languages, they're there is some marginalized European languages, like say, Irish. So what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.

I love music, I make films with music, I eat with music, I sleep with music, I think with music. Music makes me dream, it strengthens my creativity.

In the early '70s [the late] Ras Shorty and I took Indian dholak drumming [from chutney music, another Indo-Trinidadian creation], fused it with calypso's African rhythms, and soca was born against the wishes of the purists.

It's exciting to me that Ride Along is a movie that has two African American leads, but it's even more exciting to me that it's not a movie about two African American leads. They just happen to be African American. It's a universal story. It's a story about a guy in love with a girl, and he's gotta get the approval of the overbearing, mean brother. That's a universal theme.

African American music can't happen in Germany or in Italy or in Mumbai. If America disappeared off the face of the Earth today, the greatest single cultural loss would be blues, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, rock-and-roll.

I've made it my mission to make movies starring African American actors and about the African American experience and put them in the mainstream. They're very universal stories I've told - every movie I've done.

Liverpool had African players from the '50s and '60s. There were goalkeepers in the early days from South Africa. Then in 1981 there was a guy who came to Anfield. They say 'who is this guy' and it is me; I am African.

A number of African countries came to us and said, we request that South Africa should not field a candidate, because so many other African countries wanted to, and, in any case, South Africa would continue to play a role in terms of building the African Union, and so on. And they actually said, please don't field a candidate, and we didn't. As I have said, it is not because we didn't have people who are competent to serve in these positions.

Many African-American men are incarcerated. And so African-American women do carry an enormous burden. And traditionally have carried a greater burden than perhaps their white counterparts.

Obamanomics, his imposition of European-style socialism, is not working for African-Americans. It is not working for Latinos and African-Americans.

I just want to make sure that I'm taking roles that are positive, real, honest reflections of African-Americans because I do think the media can put African-American women in the background. Then, unfortunately, what happens is, subconsciously, our culture begins to assess that as reality.

I like to make bombueti, which is basically the South African national dish. It's basically a South African curry shepherd's pie kind of thing.

In the long, nonillustrious history of white people pilfering African American culture, have I just perpetrated that? I'm motivated by a love for the music and by a love of the performances, and I really hope I haven't done anything bad.

I love music, I make films with music, I eat with music, I sleep with music, I think with music. Music makes me dream; it strengthens my creativity.

I hope that more [African-Americans] decide to play after seeing the things that I was able to accomplish; not only myself, but other African-American players. Hopefully, they pick up a bat and a ball and go out there and play.

I don't do stuff to be a star. I do it because I feel it's important for kids, African American kids, to see an African American face that plays baseball.

What I want to do is basically tell my generation's story about how music and culture helped affect a generation, and a generation that's so profound, that it went on to elect the first African-American president.

Every pastor I talk to says, and particularly if they're African American they'll say, "I'm not black enough for African Americans. I'm not white enough for the whites. I'm not Hispanic enough."

[According to Twitter] 24 percent of American Twitter users are African-American. That's about twice as high as African-Americans are represented in the population.

I know I’m an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I’m not a jazz musician. I’m not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It’s in between these areas.

The ability to be the first African-American painter to paint the first African-American president of the United States is absolutely overwhelming. It doesn't get any better than that.

Every February, we celebrate the heritage and contributions of African Americans in North Carolina and around the country. North Carolina holds an important place in African American history going back generations.