Marcus Samuelsson Quotes

Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process.

What I like to do when I get to a new place is buy local music early on and listen to it while we're driving around. I think it helps explain and illuminate the culture of where you are if local music is playing.

A person can do a lot of reading and research as I have done. I went to Spain and spent a whole summer there with my family, immersing myself in the culture. But all that isn't really necessary to experience the music.

We just kind saw the images and knew the cliches, so to have the opportunity to go there and learn something about Russian music and about Russian people and to see things apart from being a tourist.

Part of me wonders what it would have been like to have had my first experience of India in a normal way, rather than through the eyes of a film.

I used to think that, given enough goodwill, anybody would be able to 'get' any music, no matter how distant the culture from which it came. And then I heard Chinese opera.

When you go visiting countries, you start reading the history of the place and you start getting into the culture, and then you have to leave. In my experience, all countries have hidden treasures.

For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty, and it's not what it is for me.

I always like to get local music when I'm in another country.

Let the blare of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith sinking Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectuals until they listen and perhaps understand.

To travel is to discover that everybody is wrong. The philosophies, the civilizations which seem, at a distance, so superior to those current at home, all prove on a close inspection to be in their own way just as hopelessly imperfect.

I enjoy being in New York. I have so many fans here that sing all my songs from start to finish.

I feel very privileged to have played China, and the pyramids, all these fantastic places, but it created a kind of smoke curtain between the audience and me as a musician.

We're really creating a whole different kind of travel experience. One that really celebrates the different places, different cultures, the different cities and immerses you in that culture.

There are so many American experiences that we can't know about unless we venture out to create a dialogue, to observe, ask questions, and stay there for a while.

Getting into the banjo and discovering that it was an African-American instrument, it totally turned on its head my idea of American music - and then, through that, American history.

Every time I come to India - where I have grown up - if I spent 20 years in this country, I will never be able to uncover all of the hidden jewels.

I want to go to a country where I don't speak the language. I want to be lost in translation.

The shores of the Black Sea lend themselves to the literary genre that may be classified as 'cultural pilgrimage,' which is not just a higher form of travel writing but which has the further mission of reporting on present conditions and supplying neglected knowledge.

I like to live like a local. When you are somewhere, you have to try to take the culture of that place and try to adapt.

I think it's important that the English culture changes a little bit and we do start to go abroad and step out of our comfort zone.

I read tons of books, listen to music non-stop, watch as many movies as possible, catch a play when I can, art shows, concerts, bar talks - I just try to engage in art, which to me is everywhere, as often as I can because narrative lives in it all.

Filming in India was very special. The chaos, the noise, and the sensory overload was all really wonderful. It was a new world to me, and being able to capture that was incredible.

Going to the U.A.E. for the first time was a real cultural shock. Everything was different. People didn't speak my language, it was all new, a huge change. But I loved it.

When I was up in New York, the first record my parents bought me was the Terror Squad record with 'Lean Back.'