“And I ask why am I black, they say I was born in sin, and shamed inequity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick, ‘love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”

I go to church because my parents go to church, and I believe the things they were doing at the time were right.

If the music does not penetrate the heart, the soul, the mind, and the body. Then you ain’t gon’ feel it.

I travel the garden of music, thru inspiration. It’s a large, very large garden, seen?

Peace is a certificate you get in the grave.

Music is in me.

I have no mother here; I have a bearer. Jah is my mother, and Jah is my father.

It’s not the one-half that’s never been told; it’s the three-quarters.

I man don’t come red, I come Black

I was born with music inside of me, and that was the first flower that bloomed on my tree, but I was the highest key in my school and also the lowest key, seen?

My philosophy is: if you don’t bear a cross, you can’t wear a crown so you gotta go through some form of humiliation to reach tribulation.

To be coordinated with the power of balance, your mind and your temple must be running parallel.

I don’t need no peace. I need equal rights and justice.

Music is a science, it heals depression.

I don’t owe no one no obligation, and no one owe me none so every ‘ting is fine.

To have the truth in your possession you can be found guilty, sentenced to death.

What the Rastaman represents is positivity.

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

The situation of women and men is not comparable to worker-boss or black and white.

Being a blues singer is like being black two times.

Who could imagine a poet wearing anything other than black?

But between sets I’d sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places.

For me black is not dark, it’s poetic. I don’t think of gothic I think of classic – it’s a big difference.

Black is not sad. Black is poetic.

The truth is, no man is white and no man is black. We are all freckled.