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

- Archie Shepp

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 hap…

- Archie Shepp

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 ou…

- Archie Shepp

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 co…

- Archie Shepp

And when I met Cecil Taylor it was a complete transformation of musical identities. All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the windo…

- Archie Shepp

So, I was just a young guy, maybe with an idea, and Cecil Taylor, himself a rebel, would take a chance on a guy like me. It turned out to be a very s…

- Archie Shepp

Music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential.

- Archie Shepp

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

- Archie Shepp

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 ba…

- Archie Shepp