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.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I come from an African Caribbean background. I've been influenced by a reggae church music style, contemporary gospel, and rock all fused together.
I haven't traveled in Africa nearly as much as I'd like to. I've been there a few times, and I'd like to learn more about the various cultures in Africa. But that's the basis point of where all of the music that I love is based upon, from Africa to Cuba to Puerto Rico to South America.
I'm a member of the African diaspora: my parents left the Caribbean and came to London for a better life.
I wanted to keep pushing the musical ideas I had about jazz, music from Africa and the Caribbean.
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.
Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.
I've always been interested in any kind of great music, and African music is, I think, the source of it all.
I base myself in African-derived music. Blues is one of the modern forms of African music.
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.
The music that I represent and helped to create and establish was born in Jamaica.
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