If the Rolling Stones are playing a concert across town, that's not my audience anyways. But I do find that there's a lot of people coming back around to see me again.
More and more people are finally realizing that in the heart of America, there's all this incredible music that wasn't widely heard before because it wasn't in the interest of those who feel they have to control the taste of the wider public.
I don't need the credits for playing the blues and paying the dues. I've already done it. There are some other things to do here - movies and scores and voice-overs.
Very old music is, like, 11th century in my mind. That's very old.
I'm always cracking up when I hear what people think I should be doing.
My music is really fun music, with some pan-African and pan-American influences.
Naw, it - it never stops, man... You gotta be doing what you're supposed to be doing - whenever, however it's coming down, you know. If you're getting your butt kicked - you still gotta do what you gotta be doing.
I would have never gotten to college if it hadn't been for getting up at 4 A.M. and milking them Holsteins.
I didn't want to fall into the trap of complacency.
I wanted to keep pushing the musical ideas I had about jazz, music from Africa and the Caribbean.
If what you're talking about is seeing someone perform, then I'll have to say that in the rhythm-and-blues side of things, seein' Otis Redding live was it, you know?
As a kid, I always felt connected to Africa; it was something I was very proud of.
I was always looking for evidence of these common musical roots, but I was too young to know that what I was doing was called ethnomusicology.
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.
As a solo performer, it's total involvement. What I do is to break down the wall between audience and performer.
I see myself as a composer who plays music and likes to play with other people, and not just as a solo artist.
My grandparents on my father's side came to this country from the Caribbean with a strong connection to Africa and no shame about it.
As I got more involved in music, one of the things that made me excited, from the time I was a child, was that clear link between our ancestors and the sounds we hear today.
I'm perceived as someone who goes out and searches for new music, but it was all present in my household.
All the music that I play today, I actually heard either at home or in my neighborhood when I was growing up in the '40s and '50s.
