We also want to try and slow down all this foolishness that's going on between the East and West. We gotta understand that Hip Hop is now universal. Hip Hop is not East coast or West coast.
Interpretation
Hip Hop transcends regional boundaries and should promote understanding rather than conflict.
This quote by Afrika Bambaataa highlights the universal nature of Hip Hop music and culture, emphasizing that it should not be confined to any geographical or cultural borders. By acknowledging the foolishness of divisive attitudes between the East and West, he advocates for unity and understanding within the Hip Hop community, encouraging individuals to appreciate its global impact.
In practice
In a speech promoting cultural appreciation at a music festival.
Everybody needs to show respect to each others' ways and the cultural life that you get on this planet. Don't get caught up on 'I'm brown, black, white, red, blue, whatever.' You gotta ask, what were you called before 1492? All these names we're using now are just an illusion made to keep us fighting each other.
I'd like to see people pay attention to the science of hip hop. The knowledge part, the political side of what hip hop could do, or where hip hop is gonna go. I always say it's gonna become universal as we become a galactic union.
How you act, walk, look and talk is all part of Hip Hop culture. And the music is colorless. Hip Hop music is made from Black, brown, yellow, red and white.
I wear anything of culture, from the Earth or beyond. The whole planet is my shop.
A lot of times, when people say hip-hop, they don't know what they're talking about. They just think of the rappers. When you talk about hip-hop, you're talking about the whole culture and movement. You have to take the whole culture for what it is.
The indigenous peoples understand that they have to recover their cultural identity, or to live it if they have already recovered it. They also understand that this is not a favor or a concession, but simply their natural right to be recognized as belonging to a culture that is distinct from the Western culture, a culture in which they have to live their own faith.
Before the advent of the white man, black people were doing all kinds of things with their hair. The rejection of kinks and curls did come with the white man.
Multi-culture is the real culture of the world - the pure race doesn’t exist.
Just as the natural environment depends on biodiversity, so the human environment depends on cultural diversity, because no one civilization encompasses all the spiritual, ethical and artistic expressions of mankind.
A new culture can only grow up in the soil of a purged humanity.
Looting has an immense impact on our ability to understand our global cultural heritage; once these objects are gone, so too is our chance of piecing together humanity's shared story.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.