African American Music Quotes

• 

  I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.

  Ray Charles

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Music

  Ray Charles (2004). “Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story”

  112 Copy quote

  Show source

• It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

  Duke Ellington

  Inspirational, Mean Girls, Music

  1965 Of trumpeter Bubber Miley.'The Most Essential Instrument', in Jazz Journal, Dec.

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  David Simon

  Loss, Rocks, Rock And Roll

  Source: progressive.org

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was born with music inside me

  Ray Charles

  Musical Life, Inspirational Music, Musician

  Ray Charles, David Ritz (2004). “Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story”, p.11, Da Capo Press

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• What city has given the world more in terms of American culture than New Orleans? There is none. Not New York. Not L.A. Not Chicago. Not anywhere, in the sense that African American music has gone around the world twenty times over, and it's continuing to evolve. It is our greatest cultural export.

  David Simon

  New York, New Orleans, Cities

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it's all African-American music.

  Johnny Otis

  African American, Want, American Music

  4 Copy quote

• I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

  Ahmet Ertegun

  Greatness, African American, Littles

  7 Copy quote

• I'd been listening to African-American music since the first record I ever bought, which was by Sam Cooke. And it sounds more like my private thoughts that I never thought I would be able to articulate - I never thought I would be able to express publicly.

  David Toop

  African American, Listening, Records

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Michael Jackson fundamentally altered the terms of the debate about African American music.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  African American, Debate, Term

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I visited New York in '63, intending to move there, but I noticed that what I valued about jazz was being discarded. I ran into `out-to-lunch' free jazz, and the notion that groove was old-fashioned. All around the United States, I could see jazz becoming linear, a horn-player's world. It made me realize that we were not jazz musicians; we were territory musicians in love with all forms of African-American music. All of the musicians I loved were territory musicians, deeply into blues and gospel as well as jazz.

  Joe Sample

  New York, Moving, Player

  4 Copy quote