Goldlink Quotes

I was drawn to West Africa. I did listen to a bunch of different styles of African music, and there was something about the percussion and the drums of West Africa, and the energy, that felt so cinematic to me.

I come from an African Caribbean background. I've been influenced by a reggae church music style, contemporary gospel, and rock all fused together.

Even though I'm a jazz-trained drummer, I cut my teeth playing rock.

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.

You have Vampire Weekend who have more African references musically than most African-American artists.

There's definitely that tribal Africana thing going on in my sound. It's that marching band, second-line music, that Creole-influence in the kick, and the snare that drives everything for me. I think it's really what's separated my sound from a lot of the R&B and pop music out there.

I base myself in African-derived music. Blues is one of the modern forms of African music.

The common root, of course, comes out of Africa. That's the pulse.The African pulse. It's all the way back from . . . the old slave chants and up through the blues, the jazz, and up through rock. And it's all got the African pulse.

Congolese rumba was so huge in Africa that everybody was inspired by it. But my African roots brought me this music. In every African family, parties in Brussels, we used to listen to this kind of music. And salsa music as well.

I lie more with drums and the more heavy and darker aspects of music.

Technically, a Ghost song could just be piano and vocals, but it could also be full, pounding, heavy-thrashing hard rock.

I think Taylor Swift, in the days when she was kind of doing more country style, definitely was a big inspiration for me.

Music is a huge inspiration to my style. I first got into it when I was 10: the new wave mod scene.

When I put out 'Toot It and Boot It,' did anything sound like that?

The jambalaya of the American South owes a lot to the cuisines of the islands and western Africa, and it's my favorite of this type of one-pot cookery.

I was always playing with whatever I could get under my hands, making rhythm with it, which was natural for me, because my parents were listening to a lot of African music.

When I first heard the minstrel banjo - I played a gourd first - I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my god. And then I went to Africa, to the Gambia, and studied the akonting, which is an ancestor of the banjo, and just that connection to me was just immense.

Nirvana, Weezer and Smashing Pumpkins, all those bands, at their core, are just really incredible pop music and I think a lot of that stuff has deeply affected the way I approach music.

The Gaslight Anthem is very streamlined. We don't usually use organs and strings and things like that.

Nobody can deliver a line better than Jadakiss. That's where I learned my technique. He can deliver punchlines so perfectly wrapped up for you to enjoy. If I had a different favorite rapper, I wouldn't be able to make some of the music I do.

My country stuff, it might sound like Hank Williams - that's just the way it is. But I'd rather sound like Hank Williams than Trace Atkins.

My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

Definitely one of the biggest influences on my music is the music that Ben Gibbard's associated with, so Death Cab and The Postal Service.