Quotes from Taj Mahal

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.

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.

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

I'm perceived as someone who goes out and searches for new music, but it was all present in my household.

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

My perspective is cultural and world-based. It's always been a global perspective.

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

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.

I'm a composer, man.

As a kid, I always felt connected to Africa; it was something I was very proud of.

The song of the blues, the song of the music, was something a lot of people missed out on. They thought they had to swagger a certain way or bark at the mic, and you don't have to do that.

I'm always cracking up when I hear what people think I should be doing.

I pretty much move around wherever I like.

I enjoy music wherever it's coming from.

What the future of the planet and music and art and all of it is sharing; it's diversity.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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