Quotes About Culture

I read a lot of biographies and books with an African background.

It's not like, I don't know, if Madonna has a new record out, then everybody from Bangkok to Birmingham knows what its called and can buy it the same week. But our stuff is not in that mass market.

We're a tight-knit city in Birmingham. We have so much around us that brings the people together, no matter who you are or your background.

I'm used to the egos in the 1960s, '70s and '80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.

The issue of race is not an issue of choice. It's an issue of birth.

When you move around a lot, there are little bits of you from everywhere. I mean, my father's French, and I speak French, and there's a kind of struggle in me that says, 'I'd like to be French.' But I've never been fully part of that culture, that role.

As much as I'm a black person from America, I'm a black person from Africa, too.

I'm not black myself, but my sons are.

When I first got to Los Angeles, hip-hop music was a scary thing not only to white America but to middle-class black America.

College was where I got to actually experience the difference between black and white.

I wanted to make a movie about a black family in Middle America. I wanted to make a film where everyone can look at them and say, 'This is my family.'

History is so deep, especially black history, so I have a lot to learn.

Black history is American history. You cannot tell one story without telling the other.

I went to white schools and I didn't know anything about black history.

Black music is too big and too powerful not to have its own awards show.

You can't just say in one sentence what is blackness or what is black culture or what makes you who you are.

Anglo Saxons: To blame for everything.

Everybody blames the culture without taking responsibility.

I played football because I loved the game - but I didn't enjoy the focus on not making mistakes and the culture being essentially one of blame and a little fear.

We are told to do good math, lead the country, or go abroad and make million. You can't blame anyone. That's the way our children are trained. But what about other things like respecting women and liking your own culture first?

My memories of mealtimes are a real bleed of music and food. Music never really stopped in the music room, because everyone would move out to the table with their sitars.

If you cut me open I bleed East London.

Being in L.A. is great because there are so many weird people out there, so you can just blend in. I like that.

I grew up in a wonderful blend of a lot of old culture.