I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPEI’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.
More Babatunde Adebimpe Quotes
-
-
Adding instruments to parts of a song and having them somehow find a pocket. That to me was a huge lesson. Like, there’s more than 808s in the universe.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE -
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 -
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 -
Ten years is a pretty good run for anything.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
The feeling of being halfway through a show and just realizing that there’s nothing you can do to save it – it’s a horrible feeling.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE -
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 -
I feel like now if you’re going to start a band you have to have an Instagram full of yourself looking a certain way, lined up like five dudes in mugshot alley, hanging out by the bridge or up against the wall, or “We’re in a library for some reason!”
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE -
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 -
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 -
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 -
There are people who kind of let you know that you can silence the room.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE






