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

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

topic: Inspiring, Music, Heart, Music Life, Musical Life

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

- Duke Ellington

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

topic: Music, Mean, Swings, Jazz And Life, Cool Jazz

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

source: Source: progressive.org

topic: Loss, Rocks, Rock And Roll, Mumbai, African American Music

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

source: Source: progressive.org

topic: New York, New Orleans, Cities, African American Music, American Music

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

- Johnny Otis

topic: African American, Want, African American Music

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

- Ahmet Ertegun

topic: Greatness, African American, Littles, African American Music

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

source: Source: thequietus.com

topic: African American, Listening, Records, Sam Cooke, African American Music

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

- Michael Eric Dyson

topic: African American, Debate, Term, African American Music, American Music

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

topic: New York, Moving, Player, Free Jazz, African American Music