Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Vijay Iyer

Quote by Vijay Iyer

“I'm what they call a 'non-black person of color': NBPOC. It's easy and seductive and common to mobilize around these identity issues, but often that's done at the expense of considering structural anti-blackness. That puts everything in a slightly different light for me, especially because of where I am and why - where I am in the world of the arts, where I live, in Harlem - and the music that I've been able to make, whom I've been able to make it with, who has nurtured me. It's not just about solidarity. It's actually about debt.”

Quote by Vijay Iyer

Author

Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer is a renowned jazz pianist, born on October 26, 1971. His musical style blends jazz, classical, and world music elements, winning him a dedicated following. more

You May Also Like

“The phrase I use is 'easy camaraderie.' Non-western immigrants of color and their progeny like me - my parents came here fifty years ago and I was born and raised in Rochester - whether it's Teju Cole, or Rudresh Mahanthappa, or Himanshu Suri, or Miya Masaoka, or Barack Obama, we all have that in common. And that's different from being descended from enslaved African captives. I am very conscious of that difference, and conscious of how easy it is to forget about it. I find myself always coming up against that.”

“I've realized that a lot of people come to me because of what's called identity. In the sense of "he's like me" - more like identification. Identity is one of those nonsense words: it's been used so much it doesn't mean anything. As individuals, we don't want to stay the same; identity means sameness, and we don't want to be the same, we want to keep changing, we want to grow, we want to become something else. We want to evolve. So when people come to me, it's about resonance - it goes back to that word.”

“Medicine is often conservative and slow to incorporate something that wasn't there before and that we're afraid people are going to laugh at us for. But, the beauty of music is - well, a couple things. There are no side effects that are harmful. Music doesn't do that. It doesn't have any negative effects whatsoever. So I do think it's going to come, but I think it's a new idea for people.”