Babatunde Quotes & Sayings

Being 15 and like a punk in the DIY community, basically being with a group of people like no one else, it was the first place to exclude or call out if people were racist, sexist, homophobic or in any way prejudiced. — Babatunde Adebimpe

You turn into this desperate dude looking for a shred of attention when you just had so much. It's like, "I'm just lonely and all I really want is a hug, but I gotta capture that in something real gross." You start to understand why circus clowns are alcoholics. — Babatunde Adebimpe

My recommendation is a compelling urgency for decentralisation. There is a necessity to decentralise the Police. We are under policed. — Babatunde Fashola

No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand. — Babatunde Adebimpe

You have to be a really talented writer if you're trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don't have the focus to do that, really. — Babatunde Adebimpe

A lot of people have reunion things, but I think bands are supposed to break up. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Actions must have consequences. — Babatunde Fashola

You can physically move yourself around but there's that great line that Adam wrote: "Does it define for life, like print of thumb?" I think it does. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Only indiscriminate love can make us free. — Babatunde Olatunji

Even as a fan, as someone who's into his performances, the Stooges and his own stuff, Iggy [Pop] is one of the people who kept underlining something that a lot of my older musician friends with punk roots say: you get into this space in your life where you feel like a weirdo, you're marginalised, you don't fit in ... and then you can get up on stage in front of people who probably hate you. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Adam is one of my favourite writers, period. He has such a unique voice and he's somebody who I admire so much for putting the effort into inventing his own language and furthering it. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Oftentimes, when music is just blasting out it seems like it's overcompensating for something missing in the song's structure. When I think of the music that I listen to constantly, it's never like an assault. — Babatunde Adebimpe

I was living in a loft with Dave Sitek - this loft full of people just working on their stuff. Some were painting, some were writing. Any plans you had were kind of like a plan for the next two months. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Drumming is the simplest thing that we can do to bring us together. — Babatunde Olatunji

Touring is really a weird social experiment, even though everyone thinks it's a party every day. — Babatunde Adebimpe

One second you're having the time of your life in front of all these people, and then you come backstage to the exact opposite - there's only lukewarm carrots back there. — Babatunde Adebimpe

I feel like now if you're going to start a band you have to have an Instagram full of yourself looking a certain way, lined up like five dudes in mugshot alley, hanging out by the bridge or up against the wall, or "We're in a library for some reason!" — Babatunde Adebimpe

The abuse of political power is not as important as the loss of lives. Plus there is a process for curing the abuse of institutions. — Babatunde Fashola

I know that being upset without having an avenue to fix anything is a real hard place to be in for too long. But it's even worse thinking that it'll go away if you just ignore it. — Babatunde Adebimpe

If anybody won life, David Bowie did, at least as a creative entity in the sense of writing yourself into existence and writing yourself out in such a graceful swoop. — Babatunde Adebimpe

The evocative power of the drum can be compared to the Trinity. The drum's frame comes from the trunk of a tree, and that tree has a spirit. It is not dead wood. There is also spirit in the animal skin. If there wasn't, it would not produce sound. Those, plus the spirit of the person playing become an irresistible force. — Babatunde Olatunji

The cynicism doesn't come across in the final; it can be taken as a very sincere plea for someone to not go away. — Babatunde Adebimpe

The economy needs a stimulus. We MUST borrow. The notion of debt as a sin or something evil should be reviewed. — Babatunde Fashola

Well, by all means please let's decentralize policing. — Babatunde Fashola

It's insane when someone shows up to your show and is like, "You could run off with me right now!" I'm like, "It's cool, I think I'm gonna go read." — Babatunde Adebimpe

There are a lot of spikes that can happen when what you're doing starts to get attention or people start to talk about it. They can just kind of really do a number on your reasons for making music. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Hearing that [David] Bowie passed was like you don't really believe it. It's as if the sky shifted a little bit, to remind you it was there. — Babatunde Adebimpe

The spirit of the drum is something that you feel but cannot put your hands on,
It does something to you from the inside out ...
It hits people in so many different ways.
But the feeling is one that is satisfying and joyful.
It is a feeling that makes you say to yourself, '
I'm glad to be alive today! I'm glad to be part of this world! — Babatunde Olatunji

Every thing and every human action revolves in rhythm. — Babatunde Olatunji

Most of the bands that I really like no longer exist. That might just be because I'm in my thirties or whatever. But I also think it's the rare band that doesn't, like, turn into something else. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Rhythm is the soul of life. The whole universe revolves in rhythm. Everything and every human action revolves in rhythm." - Babatunde Olatunji — Jim Donovan

Most of the bands that I really hold in my heart - you don't think about them as bands; they're just the soundtrack of your life. — Babatunde Adebimpe

The choices that women make have huge impact on families, on communities and on nations. Being able to provide an enabling environment for them to exercise their rights and make choices in their lives is crucial. It is at the heart of human development! — Babatunde Osotimehin

Every state need not start with state policing if they can't fund it. — Babatunde Fashola

I want to be around these positive, expressive people who are doing something different and who also want to get the hell out of there and don't want to be around basic human bullshit. — Babatunde Adebimpe

The Creator wants us to drum. He wants us to corrupt the world with drum, dance and chants. After all, we have already corrupted the world with power and greed ... which hasn't gotten us anywhere - now's the time to corrupt the world with drum, dance and chants. — Babatunde Olatunji

We know what to do and we know how to do it, these investments save lives, empower women and girls, strengthen health systems and have a profound and lasting impact on development. — Babatunde Osotimehin

I feel like people just let each other live a little more in New York. — Babatunde Adebimpe

For every citizen that was robbed, I had failed. — Babatunde Fashola

I like the model of people getting together to make something when they want to do it and not being dictated to by a cycle. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are universal human rights!They are an indivisible part of the broader human rights and development equation. Their particular power resides in the fact that they deal with the most intimate aspects of our identities as individuals and enable human dignity, which is dependent on control of our bodies, desires and aspirations. — Babatunde Osotimehin

My knowledge of Abuja is not as deep as my knowledge of Lagos. — Babatunde Fashola

Painting and animation can be kind of long work. Music was more immediate and more fun. — Babatunde Adebimpe

The feeling of being halfway through a show and just realizing that there's nothing you can do to save it - it's a horrible feeling. — Babatunde Adebimpe

The concept of loyalty is a very strange concept. When loyalty is to be tested, the real answer is that may it never be. — Babatunde Fashola

I was born in St. Louis and lived in Pittsburgh for a bit, before my family moved to Nigeria, where they're from. We lived there for three or four years and came back to the States when I was about ten. I realised that I'd gone from place to place not fitting in. The thing that helped me fit in when moving around and not having a ton of friends was that I could make art. That was the through-line. — Babatunde Adebimpe

There was something in me, even leaving fifth grade, that hit me and said, "I have to get out of here. I don't know where, and I don't know what else I can do but I'm really not going to end up like any of these people." — Babatunde Adebimpe

The unfortunate thing about money is that it always raises suspicion even amongst brothers. — Babatunde Fashola

I don't want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I'm doing. — Babatunde Adebimpe

We should have a debt that grows our productivity, we cant borrow to pay salaries. I can borrow to build power plants. — Babatunde Fashola

Ten years is a pretty good run for anything. — Babatunde Adebimpe

I am that I am, I am beauty, I am peace, I am joy, I am one with Mother Earth. I am one with everyone within the reach of my voice. In this togetherness, we ask the divine intelligence to eradicate all negatives from our hearts, from our minds and from our actions. And so be it ... ashe. — Babatunde Olatunji

There are times we spent money when we shouldn't, the choices we make define the results we get — Babatunde Fashola

I've had terrible, terrible, terrible shows where I just thought, "That was off-key" or I forgot lines or I thought I looked like an idiot, and then you're leaving and talking to people, and they're like, "I had the best time of my life! That was amazing!" You just never know. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Where I come from we say that rhythm is the soul of life, because the whole universe revolves around rhythm, and when we get out of rhythm, that's when we get into trouble. — Babatunde Olatunji

I probably couldn't have the same experience listening to that song because I'm self-conscious about some of my singing parts. — Babatunde Adebimpe

There are people who kind of let you know that you can silence the room. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Who want to benefit from the commonwealth must contribute to the common purse. — Babatunde Fashola

The United Nations has been in the Great Lakes Region and Sahel for 50 years, mostly investing in peacekeeping. NOW is the time to invest in young people! — Babatunde Osotimehin

I have nothing against people getting their band back together, but the artists I love marked a time in my life, and to merge that time with now can be personally depressing. — Babatunde Adebimpe

Adding instruments to parts of a song and having them somehow find a pocket. That to me was a huge lesson. Like, there's more than 808s in the universe. — Babatunde Adebimpe

As governor of Lagos, I never signed a cheque and never fixed contract prices. — Babatunde Fashola

If you push hard enough you can change. You can take everything you know and round it up, turn it into something else, and keep turning things into something else. — Babatunde Adebimpe