Flying Lotus Quotes

As time passed on, got to hear some players who were straight up funky, not just jazz. Nat Adderley, for instance - he's a funky trumpet player, so he was my man.

I've been listening to Herbie Hancock forever. He's gone through so many transitions, even before bringing hip-hop to the forefront with 'Rockit' and everything.

Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing.

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.'

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

I like Stevie Wonder as my favorite non-pianist pianist. I mean, I shouldn't call him a non-pianist, because he's really a great pianist, but he doesn't feature it that much - he uses his keyboards and his piano technique to support his great songs and so forth, but he can really blow.

I've been sampled at least 71 times. Me, James Brown and George Clinton, we're the ones who've been sampled the most.

I grew up with go-go music. We wasn't really hip-hop fans.

I grew up listening to a lot of hiphop music and R'n'B. Bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions, Cypress Hill, New Edition, Bob Marley, Prince, Stevie Wonder, and a lot of Spanish music.

When I was about 18, I really started diving into Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer Trio and some of those things that have jazz elements but also a pop feel.

I remember playing Billy Cobham's 'Total Eclipse' for Snoop Dogg. I also played him Frank Zappa, 'Apostrophe.' And I played him 'Saint Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast.'

I've been a jazz artist playing pop and R&B my entire career.

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.

We play rock & roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz.

James Brown's music still sounds as fresh and as good and as new as it did when he first created it.

'Black Radio' was pretty much a jam session.

Everybody knew James Brown. Every musician dreamed of being in his band.

I think I just had it by osmosis: an appreciation of Duke Ellington before I really even knew who he was.

I love Erykah Badu. Every time I listen to her music, I'm, like, laying out all the instruments in the song, like, how I would loop it.

'What's Going On' is one of the greatest albums ever made. I definitely wasn't aiming to make my 'What's Going On,' you know what I mean? That album is definitely deep in my DNA. I've probably listened to that more than maybe any other album ever in my entire life.

When I was 14, I heard Otis Redding in a club local to me, and I was blown away. It leaped out at me and went straight to my heart. I set my sights on singing like that.

Nas was a huge influence. That's probably my favorite rapper of all time.

I was into Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, the blues.

When I was a kid, my favorite rapper was 50 Cent. He was definitely a big influence on why I wanted to do music.

We've now got a whole generation of jazz musicians who have been brought up with hip-hop. We've grown up alongside rappers and DJs; we've heard this music all our life. We are as fluent in J Dilla and Dr Dre as we are in Mingus and Coltrane.