America Quote by Archie Shepp

Rap actually took root in the Negro community, and then in the Hispanic community, long before it impacted on the larger American community as…

— 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…

— Archie Shepp

It was a particularly interesting and exciting time, and the European political and artistic establishment was turned on by the Civil Rights Movement and…

— 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…

— Archie Shepp

Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

— Archie Shepp

A whole generation of young whites have involved themselves with traditional Negro music.

— Archie Shepp

You get a show where people are jumping up and dancing, but it's not a critical event in the sense of profound catharsis. Essentially…

— 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,…

— Archie Shepp

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

— Archie Shepp

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

— Archie Shepp

I find that here in the States, audiences are generally less knowledgeable, from the cognitive point of view, though they are emotionally more receptive.

— 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.…

— Archie Shepp