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No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand.

Babatunde Adebimpe

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.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

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

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

Fun Kind Long
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
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
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
A lot of people have reunion things, but I think bands are supposed to break up.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

Band People Thinking
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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

Focus News Song Stories
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
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

Lessons Pockets Song
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
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
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
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

Feelings Horrible Realizing
There are people who kind of let you know that you can silence the room.
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPE

People Rooms Silence

No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand.

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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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