Music must awaken people to do their duty as citizens and act.
Fela KutiRead
The music of Africa is big sound: it's the sound of a community
Interpretation
Fela Kuti emphasizes the communal nature of African music as a representation of collective identity and expression.
This quote by Fela Kuti highlights the importance of community in African music, suggesting that it is not just an individual art form but a representation of collective experiences, culture, and identity. The 'big sound' signifies the vibrant and holistic expression that emerges from unity and shared experiences within a community, portraying music as a vital medium for storytelling and connection among people.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the cultural significance of music in African societies.
Music must awaken people to do their duty as citizens and act.
The rhythm, the sounds, the tonality, the chord sequences, the individual effect of each instrument and each section of the band - I'm talking about a whole continent in my music.
I'm playing deep African music.
The art, the greatness of the music, the experience of the music is what I'm about. I think most African artists have destroyed their artistry by commercialization, and I don't want to belong to that bag.
The human spirit is stronger than any government or institution.
My message was 'Think African. Make schools read African history.'
If I had a talent, it was for looking askew at everything, possibly more than my contemporaries. But I had to really push myself to be a writer.
The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.
What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless.
I was always the first person in the theater all the time. If it was an eight-o'clock curtain, I was here at five-thirty, and it wasn't that I needed to vocalize, because I was all warmed up. I couldn't wait for it to begin.
I can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.
When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.
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