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You have to be a really talented writer if you’re trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don’t have the focus to do that, really.

Babatunde Adebimpe

I have nothing against people getting their band back together, but the artists I love marked a time in my life, and to merge that time with now can be personally depressing.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Artist Depressing People
You can physically move yourself around but there’s that great line that Adam wrote: “Does it define for life, like print of thumb?” I think it does.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Doe Moving Thinking
My father was a psychiatrist and a social worker but he was a very talented painter and musician and writer on the side.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Father Musician Side
It’s insane when someone shows up to your show and is like, “You could run off with me right now!” I’m like, “It’s cool, I think I’m gonna go read.”
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Insane Running Thinking
When I’m in the mode of feeling positive about love, I don’t really feel the need to mark it down in song. In fact, I know what that song would sound like, and I would not subject anybody to that.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Feelings Song Sound
Regarding race or gender or sexuality, one of the great things about art and music is that they can provide people with very little else in common with a similar entry point for discussion, but the discussions still need to happen for life to get more interesting.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Art People Race
I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

People Thinking Want
I think that music and art and film, at their best, can connect with something that is eternal in human beings, that might not have so many labels on it, something that’s ultimately universal and that may just be a feeling.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Art Feelings Thinking
There are a lot of spikes that can happen when what you’re doing starts to get attention or people start to talk about it. They can just kind of really do a number on your reasons for making music.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Attention Numbers People
Most of the bands that I really hold in my heart – you don’t think about them as bands; they’re just the soundtrack of your life.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Band Heart Thinking
Being 15 and like a punk in the DIY community, basically being with a group of people like no one else, it was the first place to exclude or call out if people were racist, sexist, homophobic or in any way prejudiced.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Community Groups People
Hearing that [David] Bowie passed was like you don’t really believe it. It’s as if the sky shifted a little bit, to remind you it was there.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Believe Littles Sky
No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Hands Jobs Wanted
I was living in a loft with Dave Sitek – this loft full of people just working on their stuff. Some were painting, some were writing. Any plans you had were kind of like a plan for the next two months.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

People Two Writing
One second you’re having the time of your life in front of all these people, and then you come backstage to the exact opposite – there’s only lukewarm carrots back there.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Carrots Opposites People
A lot of people have reunion things, but I think bands are supposed to break up.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Band People Thinking
If anybody won life, David Bowie did, at least as a creative entity in the sense of writing yourself into existence and writing yourself out in such a graceful swoop.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Bowie Creative Writing
Ten years is a pretty good run for anything.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Running Ten Years
I want to be around these positive, expressive people who are doing something different and who also want to get the hell out of there and don’t want to be around basic human bullshit.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Bullshit Different People
Painting and animation can be kind of long work. Music was more immediate and more fun.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Fun Kind Long
Oftentimes, when music is just blasting out it seems like it’s overcompensating for something missing in the song’s structure. When I think of the music that I listen to constantly, it’s never like an assault.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Missing Song Thinking
There was something in me, even leaving fifth grade, that hit me and said, “I have to get out of here. I don’t know where, and I don’t know what else I can do but I’m really not going to end up like any of these people.”
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Fifth Grade Leaving People
Touring is really a weird social experiment, even though everyone thinks it’s a party every day.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Party Social Thinking
The cynicism doesn’t come across in the final; it can be taken as a very sincere plea for someone to not go away.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Away Final Going Taken
You turn into this desperate dude looking for a shred of attention when you just had so much. It’s like, “I’m just lonely and all I really want is a hug, but I gotta capture that in something real gross.” You start to understand why circus clowns are alcoholics.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Hug Lonely Real
I probably couldn’t have the same experience listening to that song because I’m self-conscious about some of my singing parts.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Listening Self Song
I know that being upset without having an avenue to fix anything is a real hard place to be in for too long. But it’s even worse thinking that it’ll go away if you just ignore it.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Long Real Thinking

You have to be a really talented writer if you’re trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don’t have the focus to do that, really.

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You have to be a really talented writer if you’re trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don’t have the focus to do that, really.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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