* * * * * * *
The  m u s i c

is not part of

this planet
 
in a sense that the spirit of it
 
is  about happiness.
 
Most musicians play earth things,
 
about what they know,
 
but I found out that they are mostly
 
u n h a p p y  and  f r u s t r a t e d
 
and that creeps over  into
 
their  m u s i c.
 
But p e o p l e
 
they have dreams of
 
going other places
 
and seeing other things.
 
Musicians should not get to tied up
in academic things
 
and their egos and the money thing,
 
or they'll     
 n e v e r  b e  a b le  t o  r e a l l y  c r e a t e.




There are musicians who say
 
I'm too far from people,
 
but  e v e r y w h e r e  I  go
 
people be smilin',
 
clappin' their hands
 
and they're happy.
 
So it's N O T  T O O  F A R  O U T,
 
because people are listening and they
 
might not know the music   but they connect with
 
what I'm doing  and that  speaks for itself.
 
In  every  nation  same  reaction.
 
In  A m e r i c a t o o, at  l e a s t  it
 
took them a long time to
wake up.
 
The teenagers and the sub-teenagers
 
they are waking up. I played
in  
a teenage club
 
called the Knitting Factory and
 
people there  were amazed
 
with what happened.




I'm dealing with
p u r e  s o u n d s.
 
I call musicians
t  o n e  scientists.
 
Every musician has to realize  what
 
t o n e  and what k e y  is good for him mentally.
 
He must not only play for the people,
 
he must play for his own well being too.
 
A lot of musicians do too many things
 
that are not spiritual.
 
The whole thing comes
down to survival,
 
they only think about making money,
 
but they might be harming themselves mentally,
 
physically and spiritually beyond repair.
 
Musicians must protect themselves.

 
 
 

It's really not my band,
it's a creators band.
 
H e  s e n d s  m e  p e o p l e.
 
A  fellow I knew, he didn't believe in god,
 
he is writing me about
two years ago telling me,
 
"so now I believe in god.
 
He sends you the worst people he can find for your band.
 
Why does he treat you so mean?"
 
And see, I take these people
 
and I change them completely
 
and they be playing amazing things.
 
It's not about how much they know
but how they fit.

 
 
 

Now, if you play in this band
 
you have to listen,
 
listen,
 
listen !
 
 
Rehearsing wouldn't do anybody no good.
 
You've got to  l i s t e n  f i r s t
 
and then you  l i s t e n  to other musicians
 
and you might find out  that what they play
 
is imitated rather than created,
 
and that's when you're awakin' to the fact
 
that you have to create.
 
The world needs creators right now.

 
 
 

What I wanna do is mindblowing  the musicians.
 
I'm dealing with rhythms,
each song I write got to have a different rhythm.
 
I might change  the rhythm on
             the piano
 
and that calls for a musician to use his intu i t i o n,
 
he has to
feel it and fall in
 
and then  he will hear some music
he never dreamed was possible.
 
 
I teach my musicians
 
not to know things
 
and that's a totally different thing.
 
They don't teach that
in schools.

 
 
 

People have a lot more
of the  U N K N O W N
 
than the known in their minds.
 
The U N K N O W N is great,
 
i t ' s  l i k e  t h e  d a r k n e s s
 
Nobody made that
it just happens.
 
Light and all that
someone made that,
it's written that they did.
 
B u t  n o b o d y  m a d e  t h e  d a r k n e s s

 
 
 

My music is about
d a r k   
   tradition.
 
Dark tradition  means a lot more
 
than   black tradition.
 
There is a lot of division in what they call black.
 
I'm not into division,
 
I'm into coordination, discipline and precision.

 
 
 

I'm never satisfied with myself.
 
I wake up every morning and I don't like what I did before,
 
because it's not going to fit another tomorrow.
 
But I put all that behind me
 
and I don't think about nothing but reaching people
 
with impressions of happiness.
 
If they get an impression of happiness that's pure,
 
that has no purpose really,
 
it just happens like birds fly,
 
then people can use that impression as foundation
 
to know the difference between
 
the makebelieve happiness and the real happiness.

 
 
 

It could really change the planet if
 
people could only visit some other planets.
 
I'm trying to get them to F E E L other planets.
 
And people are ready for something different,
 
they've had enough trouble on this planet
 
to know they've got to find an outlet.
 
I have been o u t a s p a c e
 
I've had experiences g o i n g o u t t h e r e
 
I know it's possible.
 
There are people who think that's crazy,
 
but it's real.
 
Dreams are real.
 
They tell you something.

 
 
 

Maybe 20 years ago
 
the New York Times said that
 
I bipassed the spaceage.
 
But I'm dealing with the omni-age now.
 
I'm talking about the omniverse
 
and no longer about the universe.
 
I used to talk about the universe,
 
but you have to have desires of
 
what you really want
 
and it took me a long time to find out
 
what I really wanted and finally I decided
 
I want several solar systems and
 
quite a few galaxies.
 
I like that !
 
That would give me something to do,
 
you see.

-by Sun Ra