Grammy Award Winners

"From roughly 1995 to about 2002, there was arguably no hotter band on the planet than Radiohead. It got to the point that fans worldwide could not wait to hear what was next from Thom Yorke and Co. Radiohead went from a true rock outfit to excelling within the alternative and art rock scenes while also not being afraid to throw in some electronica. There is not a better run of albums with , , , and in alternative rock history. Even today, Radiohead still has a major influence on the music scene."

"Hey, it's me, I just got off the train A frightening place, the faces are concrete grey And I'm wondering, should I turn around? Buy another ticket?"

"Now as I go upon my way So let me go upon my way Born of a light, born of a light The wind rushing 'round my open heart An open ravine with my spirit wide Totally alive and my spirit light Through an open doorway Across a street to another life And catching my reflection In a window, switching on a light One I didn't know, totally alive, totally released."

"Then into your life, there comes a darkness, There's a spacecraft blocking out the sky. And there's nowhere to hide. You run to the back, and you cover your ears, But it's the loudest sound you've ever heard. And all we trapped, ragdoll cloth people, We are helpless to resist Into our darkest hour."

"My first assignment for Down Beat was to do an interview with Milt Jackson, whom I didn't know and who was not a very easy interview. I asked several of my musician friends. But the fortunate thing was that he was recording for Atlantic, and Down Beat arranged for me to attend the session. He was recording with Coleman Hawkins, whom I had at that time already befriended. In fact, Coleman did a very big thing for me in terms of establishing me in the musicians' circle. Coleman was known for never buying anybody a drink. It's not that he was cheap, but he once explained it to me. He said, "You buy somebody a drink. Then they buy you one. You wind up drinking more than you really want." But he was noted for not doing that. We had become friendly. Coleman had this big, booming voice. Even in a noisy bar you could hear him over the crowd. His voice really carried. He said to me, "Danny. What are you drinking?" Everybody turned around and looked. That was like my initiation. Anyway, Coleman was recording with Milt Jackson. I had a little bit – he could see that I – after the session, when I started talking to Milt, that Milt was – he didn’t know me from Adam. Who is this guy? I was not – I couldn’t say that I was an experienced interviewer by then. So Coleman came over and just put his arm around and said, "He’s okay." Then Milt opened up."

"As an unintended result of the Nazi occupation [of Denmark, where Morgenstern lived at the time], jazz became more popular than ever—a phenomenon universal to countries under the Hitler jackboot. In France, Django Reinhardt enjoyed the greatest acclaim of his career, and even in Germany, there were clandestine groups of jazz fans who'd meet to listen to records. Jazz was anathema to the Nazis. who considered it a mongrel affront to Aryan "culture," the product of an unholy alliance between Africans and Jews. But to those who hated the Nazis, jazz stood for freedom, for democracy, and for the spirit of America, which, especially after Pearl Harbor, seemed to embody hope for a better future."

"While most first-time visitors wanted to see the Statue of Liberty (arriving by ocean liner, I'd already seen it) or the Empire State Building, I wanted to go to Fifty-Second Street, that legendary block of jazz clubs I'd read so much about. It wasn't much to look at from the outside, though the names on the various marquees and sandwich boards made me drool. History tells us that by the spring of 1947, the street was well into its decline and fall, and to be sure, there were signs touting strippers and comedians. But having Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, and Billie Holiday all on the same block wasn't shabby. I soon discovered that it was possible to hear a lot of music from outside the clubs, if their wasn't too much traffic noise and the doorman didn't chase you away. Eventually I learned how to nurse a beer through several sets of music by drinking from the bottle, which was opaque, instead of from a glass, which the bartender could easily spot when empty, or, if I wanted to stick around all night, to tip the bartender well on the first transaction, after which he'd leave me alone with my empty bottle."

"Then the next thing we did, which was in 1955, Art Tatum had a trio at Storyville [in Boston, Mass]. I really wanted Tatum solo. Guitar and bass – it's a fine – but I wanted to hear him himself. So we propositioned him. That turned out to be something that he immediately responded to. So we made sure that we got the best piano on campus and had it tuned to a T. I wrote a piece about him. The concert was terrific. ... Tatum played wonderfully. Then when we took him back to Boston and thanked him profusely, he then said – and this was something that I think jolted me and gave me maybe in the back of my mind the thought that I might want to get involved in this kind of thing – he said, "I want to thank you, because this is the first time I've done a solo concert all by myself." What he meant by that was that he had of course performed publicly solo piano before, but always as part of a program where there were other attractions. 1955 is a year before his death. It's astonishing."

"[Imagining a telephone conversation between an advertising executive and Abraham Lincoln just before his Gettysburg Address] Hi Abe, sweetheart. How are you, kid? How's Gettysburg? ... Sort of a drag, heh? Well, Abe you know them small Pennsylvania towns, you seen one you seen 'em all. ... Listen Abe, I go the note. What's the problem? ... You're thinking of shaving it off? Abe, don't you see that's part of the image with the shawl and the stovepipe hat and the string tie? ... You don't have the shawl. Where's the shawl? ... You left it in Washington. What are you wearing, Abe? ... A sort of cardigan? Abe, don't you see that doesn't fit with the string tie and the beard> Abe, would you leave the beard on and get the shawl."

"Humor is a very, very important part of our life. It's not just laughing at a joke, it's an attitude toward life. And as the world gets crazier, it's more important to laugh at it. It's a survival technique."

"Abe, you got the speech. ... Abe, you haven't changed the speech have you? ... Oh, Abe. What did you ya change the speech for? ... A couple of minor changes? ... I'll bet. All right, what are they? ... You what? You typed it! Abe, how many times have we told you — on the backs of envelopes. ... I understand it’s harder to read that way, but it looks like you wrote it on the train coming down."

"I like to make music that you can use to motivate yourself, because I’m going to be singing that every single day on stage. I’m not trying to sing no curses in my life."

"Lizzo is learning self-love, practicing hope, and making space to let everyone in by Rayne Fisher-Quann. Retrieved 9/11/2023."

"You realize that people truly care about you and they’ll help you, and they don’t mind helping you."

"I feel like women who are smaller aren't really given the opportunities to be body-positive or role models either because we've been conditioned to believe that women are using their bodies for the male gaze."

"And what I'm doing is stepping into my confidence and my power to create my own beauty standard. And one day that will just be the standard."

"I think that’s part of the prejudice lens that most human beings are kind of taught to build. Very judgmental. Everyone’s really mean to themselves and to others"

"I take self-love very seriously. And I take it seriously because when I was younger, I wanted to change everything about myself"

"This photo is by Erica McDonald. She doesn’t waste time - she sees, she captures. She is brilliant. She has shot covers for Raven, Ballads, 7, and many images of me over time. Because in the past, male photographers have essentially been pricks pressuring me to disrobe, touching me inappropriately etc., I work with women. Photographers like Jodie Olson (This Fire) and @ebruyildiz (American Quilt) and @merrifairy (Amen) are humble geniuses."

"Your brain is your greatest weapon. Connect it to your heart, and you can go anywhere."

"People say 'la musique africaine', but I say 'les musiques africaines'. They refuse to recognize that Africa is a continent with a huge number of different cultures and languages and music. That's always been the difficulty of my career. People expect all Africans to have the same sound more or less, as if you can lump them all together."

"Benin has little tradition of harmony in the south where I come from. The north has a lot more, but the south has more rhythms, which are absolutely fantastic and people don't know them. There's one village specifically dedicated to the drum. When you get there you can go and choose your tree, cut it down and make your percussion from it. The challenge for me is adding the harmonies that the rhythms give."

"We Africans have to be able to deal with our problems. Help from outside is alright, but we have to learn to be responsible for our own attitudes."

"It’s just that I love to sing. I love to bring Africa to the world. The beauty of Africa, not the music that people are very content about seeing and talking about."

"I come from this diversity and richness that's Benin, where there are fifty different languages. I speak four of them. I never know in advance which language will come when I start to write.The song leads me to the language."

"Everyone wins when children – and especially girls – have access to education. An educated girl is likely to increase her personal earning potential and prepare herself for a productive and fulfilling life, as well as reduce poverty in the whole community. Investing in girls’ education also helps delay early marriage and parenthood. Our booming economies in Africa need more female engineers, teachers and doctors to prosper and sustain growth."

"I never use someone just because they are great musicians. I work with people who have the same kind of feeling towards the music that I do, and the subject that I’m speaking of at that time."

"First when there's nothing But a slow glowing dream That your fear seems to hide Deep inside your mindAll alone I have cried Silent tears full of pride In a world made of steel Made of stoneWell, I hear the music Close my eyes, feel the rhythm Wrap around Take a hold of my heartWhat a feeling Bein's believin' I can have it all Now I'm dancing for my lifeTake your passion And make it happen Pictures come alive You can dance right through your life"

"I personally believe that education is the key to freedom. Actually, literacy is the key to freedom because you can educate yourself."

"Jaymee Goh, Darcie Little Badger, Indrapramit Das. These are voices that are sorely needed if we are to chart a course for humanity that does not result in the destructive practices of our past. The exploration of space and our eventual close encounters with other intelligent species will require us to leave our "colonizer" mentality behind and embrace an attitude of openness and humility we have to cultivate, let alone master. When a world leader advocates for the creation of a militaristic Space Force to exercise "dominance" in the heavens, we are moving further than ever from Gene Roddenberry's United Federation of Planets. Instead, our exploration into the unknown should cause us to examine who we are as sentient beings, and science fiction as a tool for social change makes for a most welcome companion on our journey."

"I am a huge fan of science fiction! Throughout my life I have marveled at the powerful, even transformative nature of speculative storytelling. The influence science fiction storytelling is having in popular culture right now is amazing to behold, and as a genuine fan of the medium, I truly believe we are in a New Age of speculative fiction. There is a pleasing phenomenon developing in the genre recently: the worthy inclusion of voices of color, which are being paid much overdue attention. Why this is important should be self-evident. However, for those sitting way in the back, consider this: we continually create the world we occupy-in our imaginations first, and only afterwards do we make those visions manifest in this world. So it stands to reason that a healthy society is one that respects and honors the voices of ALL of its components. For too long, the voices and visions for our future have been provided, for the most part, by and from a culturally European (if not Eurocentric) perspective. However, there is change afoot. The works of Octavia E. Butler are becoming mainstream, and names like Nnedi Okorafor and Lesley Nneka Arimah are bringing much needed flavor to the narratives that help shape our future."

"I wouldn’t want to be a young and emerging talent in today’s environment of the 24-hour news cycle and social media and a camera in everyone’s hand. I can’t imagine how much that adds to the burden of the journey."

"My life was changed forever. My first day as an actor, Cicely Tyson played my mother, Maya Angelou played my grandmother. I was 19, and they embraced me as a peer. They schooled me. They certainly taught me what it meant to be a professional, but they assumed that because I was there I belonged there, and they treated me as such. It was an extraordinary experience for a young person."

"The Twist is putting out a cigarette with both feet or coming out of the shower and wiping off your bottom with a towel to the beat of the music. If you're wiping off your bottom with a towel to the beat of the music, you can't touch your partner at the same time. That instantly gives us this thing we call dancing apart to the beat."

"I've been baking this cake for the last 30 years, and all of a sudden the Fat Boys come and put icing on it. And it looks like we're gonna put some candles on it and blow 'em out."

"I'm not a video person at all, I prefer to let the listener have their own impressions."

"I think we all have handicaps — physical, mental, emotional or from situations into which we are born but of which we have no control. But we have to be careful not to listen to people who tell us that we can’t do this or that. If you are stupid enough to let that really sink in, then it’s true. You won’t be able to do anything. But I was always a rebel."

"For as long as I can remember, the guitar and music itself is the thing that has gotten me through everything. Whatever it is I'm thinking about, or worrying about, or feeling good about -- anything -- the music has just been there. It's sort of like a model for the way things could actually work somehow. The music itself, just being immersed in the melody and the harmony and the rhythm of it, is so extraordinary, but then I think also all the people I've known... As soon as I started to play, it caused this circle of people to be there where everything was cool somehow."

"When you’re by yourself and you’re doing something that is physically quite demanding it might be almost more readily available to get to that space. People always call it out of body or you’re on autopilot, but none of those things are exactly true. You become the thing you’re making rather than the person making it. That’s a good place to be."

"We go through life being told by every story and bit of media that we can consume that for everybody there’s this corollary person or soulmate. And you’ll know each other and they’ll just get you and know what’s going on in your heart and mind. That terrible narrative that’s sold to us, prepackaged in every form, pretty much ruins every relationship—romantic, friendly and otherwise. The acknowledgement of the real rub of being conscious, to the degree that we are, is that no matter how much the company of others we seek, the underlying source of our discontent, and constantly looking for or describing different causes for it, is that ultimately you’re alone in your head. You’re the only thing that will ever think those thoughts. And there’s no amount of companionship, comradery or family that will ever penetrate that barrier. Your life and death, there’s a solitude to it."

"It is risky, in this cynical and mocking age, to make a determinedly traditional biopic … a film willing to focus on the good that men do."

"I think doing a documentary is one set of your muscles and doing a drama is another. You can learn from both of them -- how to place material, where you build it. I learned those lessons doing both documentaries and drama. Both of them helped the other; how to keep things interesting on camera when interviewing them, the same way you keep the actor of a drama alive and not just doing it by numbers. The dramas I do are usually character-driven. It’s very similar to doing a documentary; in a drama you’re always trying to build to something. I say to documentary directors to look at more dramas, to give it more wit so you don’t put one great thing at the beginning; structure the documentary to keep the audience’s interest. I learned a lot in documentaries about how to cut performances in dramas and to keep the audience on their toes."

"I would be spooning my 6'8" boyfriend. I'm the big spoon, obviously. He'll love that I said that."

"I only arrived in the world in 1988, by which point you were already seeing many of the great things happen and by the time I started going clubbing it was all about jungle It was great fun, but a hostile environment. It wasn’t a place for a gangly, 6-foot-5-inch, mousy-haired, scarf-wearing twat like myself. More a place go and do shed loads of cocaine and try and start a fight. But I loved the sound system. The culture of taking sound systems around really interested me, and when dubstep broke, that was it."

"Nothing has ever opened my eyes like transcendental meditation has. It makes me calm and happy, and, well, it gives me some peace and quiet in what’s a pretty chaotic life!"

"It's always the suit's fault. Never the actor."

"The Broadway thing is full-on—we were nine months in, six days a week. When you get a week off, there’s something so miraculous about it and freeing. I was sitting on a beach, not a care in the world, and for some reason, the thought came into my head: What do you want to do? And the first two things had nothing to do with work—then literally, I thought: Deadpool-Wolverine. I want to do that movie. That’s what I want."

"I was there for three weeks before I shot a single thing. And that first day of shooting... I was so nervous, man. Everyone was sort of going "Who's this guy?" You know, there was a lot of that, and... You know, "Is he gonna deliver?", and that-- You can feel all that kinda pressure."

"This is pretty much one of those roles that had me pinching myself all the way through the shoot. I got to shoot a big-budget, shamelessly old-fashioned romantic epic set against one of the most turbulent times in my native country's history, while, at the same time, celebrating that country's natural beauty, its people, its cultures... I'll die a happy man knowing I've got this film on my CV."

"I think every male at some point thinks about playing James Bond so it was not right then, but it may be right if it comes back. I think you've got to be scared as an actor and keep taking risks. It doesn't always work out but it's a healthy place to be."