Black music has become a commercial commodity. Live performances are not so accessible as they were previously. It use to be possible to go to the bar on the corner and hear music. It was available for a fifteen cent beer.

I can't see any separation between my music and my life. I play pretty much race music: its about what happened to my father, to me, and what can happen to my kids.

Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

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

All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.

Black music has become a commercial commodity. Live performances are not so accessible as they were previously. It use to be possible to go to the bar on the corner and hear music. It was available for a fifteen cent beer.

You get a show where people are jumping up and dancing, but it's not a critical event in the sense of profound catharsis. Essentially it's celebratory.