Bakermat Quotes

I grew in the inner city, listening to Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, James Brown, The Commodores - lots of soul music.

I was introduced to soul music at a very young age - my mom was a soul singer.

I usually listen to various kind of singers. Curtis Mayfield was my favorite. James Brown, Tina Turner, queen of soul, I started to get that musical essence from that time before I even do my first song.

My parents' record collection was the music I was hearing as long as I can remember, and I would play Otis Redding over and over again.

At a young age, I was introduced to Joni Mitchell by my mum. My dad was into progressive rock.

I started playing with this band, the Polyester Players. It was my introduction into funk. So I went and got a James Brown record. 'Black Caesar' is a film score, but it's so dope.

Stevie Wonder's records introduced me to '70s soul when I was 12 or 13.

After I moved with my mother to St. Louis, my older sister and I went to see Ike Turner, who was the hottest then. His music charged me. I was never attracted to him, but I wanted to sing with his band.

I stumbled into soul music at a very young age. It had something that really spoke to me.

My parents loved music, and my father would come home with cassette tapes of Chic and the Village People and Barbra Streisand. We had all these sounds always going. We never had somber music - always upbeat.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

I was a James Brown junkie as a kid.

When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that.

My mom played 12-string and sang, and my dad could play pretty much any wind instrument and had a great ear for harmony. Soon enough, my sister and I got into music because we were always around it, and people were always listening to it.

I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up, my dad had just got out of jail and he had a great record collection. He had - it was all - these were the songs. So I heard a lot of these songs, like, my whole life, so for me it was easy. I already knew what I was going to sing.

Every James Brown cut makes a party get crazy. He's the god of all music. I always play different wild remixes of his songs because people start bugging out when they realise what I'm playing.

The music I was really listening to in 1968 was James Brown, the great guitar player Jimi Hendrix, and a new group... Sly and the Family Stone, led by Sly Stewart from San Francisco.

My mom was a big fan of Al Green... James Brown we weren't allowed to listen to, so of course I knew James Brown.

I'm somebody who listens to a lot of funk, a lot of James Brown, and I want to be somebody who contributes all that energy to the mainstream.

I was 5 years old when I first broke into my mother's records and played Nat King Cole, and sat alongside the stereo and listened to Nat's music.

I've been sampled at least 71 times. Me, James Brown and George Clinton, we're the ones who've been sampled the most.

The first record I was really into was the Drifters' 'When My Little Girl Is Smiling.'

I'm a street player, and all of my influences come from bands that I was listening to at the time when I was growing up. I was very impressed with guys like Mitch Mitchell. I liked rock and roll drummers, and I loved rhythm and blues guys like Clyde Stubblefield with James Brown. Man, that band blew me away all of the time.

People like to compartmentalise music, especially African-American music, but it's really one thing. One very wide thing. I mean, it's like all those great records by Marvin Gaye and James Brown back in the day - there are tonnes of jazz musicians playing on them.

I grew up listening to the greats of the '80s and, thanks to my parents, the '70s - the Doobie Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie.