For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
American mainstream is obsessed with black creative genius - be it music, walk, style - but at the same time puts a… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Collaborating with the musical genius of our time in some ways with Prince himself - late, great Gerald Levert,all these are forms… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
For me music is central, so when one's talking about poetry, for the most part Plato's talking primarily about words, where I… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Most importantly for me growing up, it was a spirituals, it was a gospels, it was James Cleveland, Aretha Franklin, Marion Williams;… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Music at its best...is the grand archeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great human effort to grasp in time… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
For me, music is in no way ornamental or decorative, it's constitutive of who I am. And that's why, when I say… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I always felt called to serve, to empower and ennoble as many people as I could, teaching, truth-telling, exposing lies, bearing witness,… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. I've… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I was deeply influenced by the sartorial practices of both preachers and jazz musicians and actually Masha in Act One of Anton… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
For me, music is in no way ornamental or decorative, it's constitutive of who I am. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Music is what we need when language fails us, but we cannot remain silent. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Profound music leads us beyond language...to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
There has certainly been ugly, right-wing hatred targeting Barack Obama. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.' — Cornel West Copy Share Image
“Like King, we need to put on our cemetery clothes and be coffin-ready for the next great democratic battle.” — Cornel West Copy Share Image
“You can't really move forward until you look back. [From Remaking America panel discussion at George Washington University]” — Cornel West Copy Share Image
When we think of globalization we are thinking in part of structures and institutions that have been developed over time and that have allowed… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I don't draw any distinctions between forms of bigotry or forms of ideology that lose sight of the humanity of people. I can't stand… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Barack Obama has domesticated the left in such a way that we feel as if we have no alternative but him...I refuse to accept… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Larry Summers, I think, he had a long history of arrogance and relative ignorance about poor people's culture and working people's culture and so… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
