Ludwig Goransson Quotes

Hip-hop in Africa has been very often a duplication of an American experience, but in a context that's totally alien to it.

I know a lot of people who enjoy rap music who aren't black. You can't just say it's black music. To segregate films the way Hollywood likes to segregate films, ultimately everyone loses.

What I don't want to do is to go and buy a bunch of exotic-looking drums and set up an Afrikanische Musik in New York City.

God, I'd love to do a big commercial movie that made a lot of money and whose plot was interesting too.

My theory is the root of a country artist is truth and honesty. For me, I look at Sam Hunt. The truth and the honest thing is we have southern roots, we were raised in a southern way, but we listen to Drake and other stuff, too.

It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am; all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American.

That's why I called my record Devil Without a Cause - I'm a white boy who's so sick of hearing that white kids are going to steal rap.

As a black artist in America, you know, it is so segregated as far as the radio goes and how they position music on the radio.

I like to make music, I like rap music. Even if I'm white, I support that music. If I want to support it or any other white kid wants to support it more power to them.

What worries me are these so-called radio stations with program directors who don't play all the different flavors of hip-hop. They should play the old with the new, 24/7, 365 days a year. A lot of these program directors are just jiving around and not playing all the good music for the people.

I don't believe in sampling some Tibetan music just to make it sound groovy, but you do your homework, you understand what you're doing with it.

First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.

You say 'African music' and you think 'tribal drumming.' But there's a lot of African music that's like James Brown, and a lot, too, that sounds very Hispanic.

English music is white - it evades everything.

I stream this radio station, Radio Nova, that's based in Paris. They curate a beautiful set that's really all over the place - they'll play blues or some West African music, then A Tribe Called Quest, then funk from Ethiopia, then James Brown, and then the Beatles. It's an amazing mix.

Everybody's trying to make blockbusters.

When you mention Bieber, Lorde, One Direction, I want to be on that list. But at the same time, when you say Lil Uzi Vert, I want my name to pop up, too. I'm kinda in between both. I wanna bring them together and exist.

American music is a powerful ingredient in international music, and as much as it comes from within, it also comes from without.

My genre of music is called Afro-Fusion because I fuse different types of music into a ball.

'Makossa' is from Africa, and it means 'dance.' It's also the name for this type of music. In my song, I decided to mix in some Jamaican sounds, like the steel drums.

Years ago, when I was making music, I was sending it off to radio stations and getting told it was 'too urban.' But what else am I supposed to make?

We are guys from North Hollywood singing about Africa. What do we know about Africa?

I'd never been in one of those great big blockbusters.

I very much enjoy my freedom creatively but I also would love to make one of those big Hollywood films that costs a lot of money and has a lot of people running around with cell phones and all that insanity.

To be honest, you have to do a big Hollywood film to get enough money to do a good independent film!