I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPEI 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.
More Babatunde Adebimpe Quotes
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Touring is really a weird social experiment, even though everyone thinks it’s a party every day.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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A lot of people have reunion things, but I think bands are supposed to break up.
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No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand.
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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.
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I feel like people just let each other live a little more in New York.
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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.”
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Most of the bands that I really like no longer exist. That might just be because I’m in my thirties or whatever. But I also think it’s the rare band that doesn’t, like, turn into something else.
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I’ve had terrible, terrible, terrible shows where I just thought, “That was off-key” or I forgot lines or I thought I looked like an idiot, and then you’re leaving and talking to people, and they’re like, “I had the best time of my life! That was amazing!” You just never know.
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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.
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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