I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through.

Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.

They had all this talent, and they had no instruments. So they started rap music. They rhymed on their own. They made their own sounds and their own movements.

Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

You can't write the same book twice. Though I've been in historical musical situations, I can't go back and do that again. And though I run into artistic crises, they keep my life interesting.

I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.