Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes

I'm not suggesting our music is the only music, but I am suggesting that there are certain elements in America's culture that are so precious that it would be a shame for them to go down the drain.

Yidaki didgeridoo has been used in every part of Australian regional culture, all around the country. It's become a message stick for the survival of those people, for aboriginal people and aboriginal culture.

I love music, I love all kinds of music, particularly jazz. Jazz is an extension of America. There's no other country in the world that could have produced jazz.

I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music.

Is it true that we must accept the music of another race as being that which is American? Have not the white Americans sufficient individuality to develop a characteristic style of composition.

We're Americans. It's a culture. We should defend that culture, and we should reinforce that culture.

Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing.

The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American.

I really hold on to my culture because it is what made me.

I've got to where am in life not because of something I brought to the world but through something I found - the wealth of African culture.

The music is just so rich and part of the culture there. I suddenly felt like I needed to go on this mission to make sure we save New Orleans because - not that I can save anything - but it's so much part of what this country is, this whole mix of people coming together and doing this thing.

I think people should look at learning about Native American history the same as visiting Washington, D.C., and seeing the monuments there. It's all part of the package.

I think there's something really painful about your identity being entirely composed of ghosts. For me, I didn't want to be this kid whose Dominicanness was something caught utterly in the past, is an abstraction, the thing that I write about. Instead I wanted it to be, first and foremost, a thing that I lived.

It takes a strong effort on the part of each American Indian not to become Europeanized. The strength for this effort can only come from the traditional ways, the traditional values that our elders retain.

I used to think that music was like lace upon a garment, nice to have but not necessary. I have come to believe that music is absolutely essential to our community life.

I know that people think of me in terms of Latin music and that's wonderful, that's my heritage, that's who I am, but there's so much more to me and my music.

I'm not becoming western; I am still following my Pashtun culture, and I'm wearing a shalvar kamiz, a dupatta on my head.

From a young age, I was encouraged to sing, dance and learn folk and popular songs in Spanish.

Come on, I'm from Iceland; I don't do hip-hop.

What is the best music is impossible to define. Just because it's played by a virtuoso player, doesn't mean it's great music. It might not reflect the soul of a people, which is really my criteria for great music.

Music has an intrinsic value that touches Americans - they love their music, and want more.

We never wore burkas because Somalis had our own culture.

It’s very important that all of us who have bicultural roots retain our culture.

The greatest guarantee for the preservation of a person’s identity is language and faith, and all Armenians must carry these two values.

We want American customs, habits, manners, dress, manufactures, modes of thought, modes of expression, and language. We should encourage national and even State peculiarities; for there are peculiarities and differences in the wants and situations of all people, that require provincial and national, not cosmopolitan, institutions and productions.