Kamasi Washington Quotes

I stumbled into soul music at a very young age. It had something that really spoke to me.

Funk, I don't think I have anything to do with funk. I've never considered myself funky.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

I usually listen to various kind of singers. Curtis Mayfield was my favorite. James Brown, Tina Turner, queen of soul, I started to get that musical essence from that time before I even do my first song.

I love Sly Stone and James Brown and Stevie Wonder, and I want my music to reflect some of that.

Every James Brown cut makes a party get crazy. He's the god of all music. I always play different wild remixes of his songs because people start bugging out when they realise what I'm playing.

The music I was really listening to in 1968 was James Brown, the great guitar player Jimi Hendrix, and a new group... Sly and the Family Stone, led by Sly Stewart from San Francisco.

I'm definitely inspired by Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, James Brown, Lauryn Hill.

I love funk! That's the music I grew up on.

Stevie Wonder's records introduced me to '70s soul when I was 12 or 13.

I grew up on soul music. I was a dancing little creep.

It's like James Brown used to say... I don't know, but whatever I play it's got to be funky.

But that kind of falls in line; when you think about it, James Brown was a funk minimalist. All of those parts create a sum that's larger than than the individual parts.

I was a James Brown junkie as a kid.

When I started playing the bass, I became kind of fascinated by it and started investigating various styles of bass playing, and I was really struck with funk music, mainly American funk music - Stanley Clarke, Funkadelic and that kind of stuff. That comes out in a couple of songs like 'Barbarism Begins at Home.'

When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that.

I fell in love with funk music through my father - Funkadelic - as well as soul and classical early on.

'Dance to the Music' was just Sly Stone being his natural crazy self right from the beginning. The man was an original and his first AM hit was nothing if it wasn't the example per excellence of the Sly Stone music machine.

I can't even imagine something being more fun than playing James Brown onstage.

My mom was a big fan of Al Green... James Brown we weren't allowed to listen to, so of course I knew James Brown.

Prince is from the school of James Brown, and I love James Brown because of all the great rhythms he plays.

I'm somebody who listens to a lot of funk, a lot of James Brown, and I want to be somebody who contributes all that energy to the mainstream.

I grew up on R&B and soul, so that backbone is always there.

James Brown came from that hard, rough life that I came from. He took the blues and added rhythm to it. And he always had the most funkiest band; I liked the way he took his words and mixed it in with the band.

People like to compartmentalise music, especially African-American music, but it's really one thing. One very wide thing. I mean, it's like all those great records by Marvin Gaye and James Brown back in the day - there are tonnes of jazz musicians playing on them.