Taj Mahal Quotes

I’m doing exactly what I always wanted to do, and I still like what I can do musically.

I enjoy music wherever it’s coming from.

When I was a kid, there was so much talent outside of recorded music.

Music is like the soul of the planet.

I wanted to keep pushing the musical ideas I had about jazz, music from Africa and the Caribbean.

The blues is played everywhere. There’s no place I’ve been where they don’t have blues or aren’t interested in blues.

I don’t care if it’s somebody else’s song. Most of the time, you’ll find that I’ll put my own stamp on it. But I started writing more because, you know, it’s easy to regurgitate what somebody else is doing, but it’s exciting to be able to come up with your own writing.

I just worked my own personal thoughts into my music, and just kept at it until I found a way in.

I love playing in Germany. I love playing anywhere where people are going to enjoy the music. Germany is especially nice to play.

I haven’t worn one for a long time, but I look pretty good in a suit.

I was always taught that Latin, Caribbean people were cousins to me, as well as blues was a cousin to me, as well as Africans were direct relatives to me. It was all a part of my language.

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.

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

The one thing I’ve always demanded of the records I’ve made is that they be danceable.

It’s pretty exciting. An honorary doctorate of the arts. It doesn’t get any better.

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.

American music is a powerful ingredient in international music, and as much as it comes from within, it also comes from without.

I came up not understanding that a lot of people didn’t start to hear music until they went to college or were turned on by an older brother or sister.

When I was 5 or 6, I was messing around with the piano, and I listened to everything from Chopin to boogie-woogie.

Ziggy Marley is the third generation of Marleys I know. I knew his grandmother and his dad – I did a children’s album with his grandmother. They’re like family.

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.

I’ve got tons more stuff to do.

As a solo performer, it’s total involvement. What I do is to break down the wall between audience and performer.

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.

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.

I wanted to explore the connections between different kinds of music.

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?

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

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.

I’m old enough to chew my peas and corn without choking.

I’m a composer, man.

My mother was American, and my father was from the Caribbean, and there was a big open door into the world of humanity and music.

Particularly with the blues, it’s not just about bad times. It’s about the healing spirit.