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"Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response."
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"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."
"88% of what we call good songs aren't really good. They merely remind us of a good time we once had."
"A tapping foot isn't the best a listener can get from a song: A good song makes a listener dance. A great song makes him think."
"Music has always gotten me through life, particularly honest, real music."
Explore more quotes by Archie Shepp
"I find that here in the States, audiences are generally less knowledgeable, from the cognitive point of view, though they are emotionally more receptive."
"It was a particularly interesting and exciting time, and the European political and artistic establishment was turned on by the Civil Rights Movement and the artistic revolution that was becoming a part of jazz."
"Rap actually took root in the Negro community, and then in the Hispanic community, long before it impacted on the larger American community as a whole."
"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."
"So, rap has that quality, for youth anyway; it's a kind of blues element. It's physical, almost gymnastic. It speaks to you organically. Rap grows out of what young people really are today, not only black youth, but white - everybody."
"In rap music, even though the element of poetry is very strong, so is the element of the drum, the implication of the dance. Without the beat, its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous."
"Negro music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential. Nothing is sacred. After a decade, a musical idea, no matter how innovative, is threatened."
"To some degree, yeah, because I have to play a certain number of originals that might be considered avant-garde material. I realize though, that only a few people in the audience actually know what that music is, or understand it."
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