Ethnic Music Quotes

When I was a young student, I only listened to foreign music, mainly rock music and hard rock. Then I surprised myself by discovering ethnic music. Now I like to listen to music from different places, and in many situations. Even when you work, some ethnic music calms the nerves.

Mostly folk music is people with fruity voices trying to keep alive something old and dead. It's all a bit boring, like ballet: a minority thing kept going by a minority group.

I can understand my popularity with the Indian diaspora, but I do get surprised when non-Indians recognise my music.

I collect many ethnic instruments, and as a guitarist, I'm usually able to play any sort of instrument - as long as it has strings. That's why I like to experiment with different sounds.

The music we're playing now is based on my heritage, which is Russian, Romanian and Hungarian.

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

My first job was in a Bohemian polka band, the Rejcek family polka band in Abbott. The old man in the band had another blacksmith shop in Abbott, but he liked me. All he had was horns and drums, and I was set up over there with my little guitar with no amps or nothing. I would play as loud as I wanted to, and nobody could hear me.

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.

Folk music is the original melody of man; it is the musical mirror of the world.

My father was always playing this ethnic blues stuff around the house, and both my parents played. Then one day my father brought home Big Bill Broonzy, and there he was sitting in our living room playing, and blues was in my heart from the time I was 12 years old.

I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.

At a time when club music has gone more electronic, I've gone the other way: organic and world music.

I tend to listen to country music more than Cuban music.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don't know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

Folk music has a sort of a bubbling-under quality. The stream runs through the cultural consciousness, and whether or not it's on the radio is not the issue. Folk music is always there.

At the heart, it is world music that I do. It's all connections. Ultimately, we're all connected.

In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.

Folk music is a bunch of fat people.

I wanted the music to sound, like, made in Mexico. I wanted to connect to my roots.

I am basically a folk singer because I'm coming from a part of the earth where folklore means a lot. The Mediterranean is a very old part of the world, and the more a place is old, the more there is folklore.

Tejano music is a very relaxing style and it reminds me of home.

It's great to see Latino music coming to the mainstream, but at the same time, there are also a lot more styles to explore: African music, Indian music, Chinese music.

I was into all sorts of music as a kid. I was very curious about ethnic music and different styles. I loved Django Reinhardt. I loved Ella Fitzgerald. I was also influenced by all the crooners of the day, like Johnny Ray, Frankie Lane.

People seem ready for a more in-depth idea of folk music, culture and history.

What is very interesting when talking about electronic music is that - I would say that rock and roll is called the ethnic music born in America that invaded the world. Electronic music is certainly kind of ethnic music born in countries like Germany and France that has invaded the world.