The poet is a specialist in something which everyone practises. Herein, poetry differs from the other arts. Everyone does not practise music or painting or even dancing, but everyone without exception puts together words poetically every day of his life.
Frankly, I think that's something that black people in America have often done - finding ways under very, very difficult circumstances to be subversive, but also to push things forward. And I think that applies to music. I think it applies to dance. I think it applies to a number of things.
To bring a large audience to a piece of serious music and make it accessible does not mean reducing it in any way. And I've learned that if something is good, even if it is a little difficult, people will get that it is good.
Music industry is a very competitive field, and one has to continuously entertain and excite the audience, which is a difficult task.
All my songs are different, but from the overall experience, I want people to sense that they can overcome and move through difficult times and find strength in my music. Maybe it's a song that makes them cry and move through something else.
Each year, every city in the world that can should have a multiday festival. More people meeting each other, digging new types of music, new foods, new ideas. You want to stop having so many wars? This could be a step in the right direction.
I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.
The thing that concerns me most is that, in the digital age, if we fail to make efforts to maintain the value of our content, there is the high possibility for the value to be greatly reduced, as the history of the music industry has shown.
Unlike painting, sculpture, or music, typefaces must be useful to someone. Fortunately for designers, the digital age has produced new problems to solve - developing typefaces that work on mobile phones, for one - and enabled better solutions to old problems.
I have watched music go from an art form into an industry. And I have watched it stop dead in its tracks because of the digital age.
I like language, and in film, language is diluted by the visuals and the music. Theatre is what I was trained for.
I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.
My parents discussed singing every night over the dinner table; I had a tremendous music education.
Kids today aren't listening to music audio-only. They're picking up a CD and looking at the lyric sheet and wondering why the pictures aren't moving around. Who wants to do that? It's like Bam Bam Flintstone hanging with the dinosaurs vs. Elroy Jetson who's flying around space. If I'm a kid, I wanna be kicking it with Elroy.
When we did Diplomats music, it was all genuine, and I think that's why people love it so much, because they seen a group of kids from Harlem that had almost nothing come up to be platinum-selling artists, and people rode that wave with us.
Superficial pop will always exist - there've always been Fabians - but when people like Dire Straits and Bruce Hornsby start having hits, it suggests that there's a revolution going on in music.
While I was into many different types of music, and played with many different local groups, I really didn't have a band to call my own until Dire Straits was formed in 1977.
I just really want to get music out and tour and go places I've never been, and just do more videos. I love photography and videography, and so I really want to direct videos when I can.
When you make music, you're in really direct contact with your fans out there, so you hear all kinds of stories.
When I use music on stage, the prime directive is to entertain the public, so it is different.
