Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I first heard African drum rhythms and chants at the movies. Then, when I had the opportunity to go to Africa and visit the villages, I heard the real, raw, true rhythms and realised the origins of the old Negro spirituals I grew up with in the South.
If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don't know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.
There's a similarity between European and North African folk musics.
I've always been interested in any kind of great music, and African music is, I think, the source of it all.
Hip-hop in Africa has been very often a duplication of an American experience, but in a context that's totally alien to it.
I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.
I base myself in African-derived music. Blues is one of the modern forms of African music.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that's it. No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa.
If there was no black man there would be no Rock'n'Roll. The beat, the rhythms of Africa are what created Rock'n'Roll and Jazz.
Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.