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I just want us to understand each other. That's the point of my music.
Benjamin Clementine -
If you have parents who can't show you love, a kid can grow up to look arrogant. Because they need to create a fake self. Or they think they're more powerful than they really are.
Benjamin Clementine
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The meaning of love is obviously huge - but for me, it means be nice to people, and people will be nice to you back. Love is a selfless place to be. There is no safer place to be than under the canopy of love.
Benjamin Clementine -
Because I didn't think anyone would actually listen to my music, I thought I could say whatever I wanted.
Benjamin Clementine -
I know, deep down, that what makes my music what it is are my words. It always starts from me wanting to say something. Once I've run out of things to say, I'll be done.
Benjamin Clementine -
Poetry itself is music. I'm just lucky that I can convert it into music. William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn't quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician. All of his poems are all like songs, and that's how I always try to start my thoughts.
Benjamin Clementine -
I've learned in the little bit of my life so far that you can't fool people. And so I only tell people what I think about: my ambitions, my dreams, what inspires me.
Benjamin Clementine -
Life is life. You have to learn how to forgive people and how to gain forgiveness for yourself.
Benjamin Clementine
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I just wanted to eat, to survive. I started singing a cappella in bars. I saved up money to get my first guitar and started writing songs.
Benjamin Clementine -
I always see my music for its rewards rather than its awards. But I always thought if there was one award I'd want to win, it would be the Mercury.
Benjamin Clementine -
If you live in central London, that's probably fine for you, but in places like Edmonton, where you're almost out of sight of London, you've got to pay more and more to get into central London. How does that work?
Benjamin Clementine -
Studying music involves a lot of mathematics and a lot of exercises of memory. Or you've got to be able to be like somebody, to play like somebody, to play Mozart's music the way he played it and how he intended it. You've got to make it perfect, and that's not what I want to do. Although it is beautiful.
Benjamin Clementine -
It's amazing how people believe you if you use long words.
Benjamin Clementine -
Where I'm staying, near Lafayette Street, Bowery, and Houston, you get different people with different spirits, and that's what I like.
Benjamin Clementine
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The greatest in heroes in life are the anonymous. That's what I believe. Your neighbours are heroes. People who, when you walk down the street, you see them feeding their little baby - these people are heroes because they are living under difficult situations, but they're still trying to save a life.
Benjamin Clementine -
Music isn't a competition.
Benjamin Clementine -
My music isn't mainstream music.
Benjamin Clementine -
Where you're from shapes you, but you can actually do whatever you want.
Benjamin Clementine -
I realised that we're all equal - it's all about helping each other.
Benjamin Clementine -
I personally wouldn't want my second album to sound like my first; it might sound very rocky or hard rock - and that wouldn't be melancholy. So if people think my music is melancholic, then so be it. It's meant to be uplifting, and I'm just basically saying what needs to be said.
Benjamin Clementine
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Music is the reason I started talking to people. When I started singing in bars and trains, I began to learn the behaviour of people. Music was the bait that helped me get something from them and give myself to them.
Benjamin Clementine -
The day has the color and the sound of winter. Thoughts turn to chowder...chowder breathes reassurance. It steams consolation.
Benjamin Clementine -
I clearly remember my father cutting our jumpers and our sports clothes with scissors - because he didn't want us to wear jogging bottoms and hoodies. He thought that would somehow set the police on us.
Benjamin Clementine -
I wanted to find people who were like me, and I did, in the people I was reading.
Benjamin Clementine