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I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.

Babatunde Adebimpe

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 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
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
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.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Band might Thinking
If you push hard enough you can change. You can take everything you know and round it up, turn it into something else, and keep turning things into something else.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Enough Knows Turn
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
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
I feel like people just let each other live a little more in New York.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Littles New York People
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 people who kind of let you know that you can silence the room.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

People Rooms Silence
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
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

Bridges Library Wall
I like the model of people getting together to make something when they want to do it and not being dictated to by a cycle.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

People Together Want
Adam is one of my favourite writers, period. He has such a unique voice and he’s somebody who I admire so much for putting the effort into inventing his own language and furthering it.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Effort Unique Voice
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
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
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
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
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
I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

People Thinking Want
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
Ten years is a pretty good run for anything.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Running Ten Years
Painting and animation can be kind of long work. Music was more immediate and more fun.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Fun Kind Long
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
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
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

I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.

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I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.

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