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Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write.

I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

There was certainly, like, a rebellious, like, youthful rage in me. And there was also the fact of no getting away from fact that I am white, and you know, this is predominantly black music, you know.

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.

Negro music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential. Nothing is sacred. After a decade, a musical idea, no matter how innovative, is threatened.

I always wanted my music to influence the life you were living emotionally - with your family, your lover, your wife, and, at a certain point, with your children.

Only the artists interest me whose hearts beat in unison with the poignant misery of the world. If you have not felt that, you have not lived. Pity is essential.

When I think of the trials and tribulations that black men go through in America and that black artists went through, I feel very privileged.