Miriam Makeba Quotes

I am pretty embroiled in moving on and moving forward with music.

How did this or that change my music? The only time I have to think about it is when an interviewer asks me that.

By 1969, when I celebrated 45 years in the music business, I also had 45 people in our musical family.

I really think I've found me finally in the music. You know, I had put an album out before, 'Embrace Me,' and it's been seven years since that. So I was discovering who I was. And I still am discovering, but I think now I know a little bit more of who I am. So that's what's pushing me.

Even though I've been putting out bodies of work for years, 'Beauty Behind the Madness' felt like the beginning.

I have a pretty healthy perspective on what my past music was.

I was heavily into Nirvana and I still am, but when I was 23 I got disillusioned by music. Then I just focused more on myself and gave up music for a while.

Every musician, their goal in life is to play music that people love, and I've accomplished my goal. I was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and left that chapter of my life and those people in the past. Good and bad, I've loved and am thankful for that chapter.

I sat out a few years because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do next. So many things were changing in music and in culture, so it seemed like a good time to step back.

Well, I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.

For me, making music is a continuous learning experience, and I think that it feeds itself.

I say I have a midlife crisis every time I start and finish a record.

Touring helped me understand where I needed to be better in my music.

As an artist, you dream about accumulating enough successful music to someday do just one greatest-hits album, but to reach the point where you're releasing your second collection of hits is beyond belief.

Well, you know, it's been interesting because an album is just a snapshot of where you are at that time. Not all pictures of everybody are just in jeans and a 'T' shirt, or a ball gown. You have many different sides and this is a snapshot of where you are at that time.

It will shock many - I've lived a full life and really enjoyed my time as a pop star.

I'm a 50-year-old guy making music for over 20 years. I've been writing songs since I was 20, so it's really been 30 years, and it's always been personal, but I've always told stories.

I've discovered all kinds of music and done all kinds of music over the past 40 years, from playing tango with Piazzolla to all the different bands I've had.

I've sort of had an investigatory relationship with being a musician. I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I felt I had had my run - I had done Jane's and I wasn't particularly interested in music anymore.

I don't need to sell tons of records, but I want longevity. I want to make music for the rest of my life.

I love my fans, I love my music - I have no reason to retire.

Going from someone playing 15-people venues to performing at the Grammys, it was this giant leap and sort of showed me it was possible with what I wanted to do and the kind of music I wanted to write and artist I want to be to impact a lot of people.

No, in 1968 I still wanted to be a Pop Star, and be about the music. Now, I want to be just about the 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.

So many of my friends are still trying to get record deals, and I've had one for 10 years now, where my only goal is to make the best music I can make. I've been very lucky. I have great faith that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and whatever happens is going to be absolutely right for me.