Outside the Lines With Rap Genius
OTL #51: Umar Bin Hassan Excerpt #5 -- Miles Davis
Umar Bin Hassan: I don't give a fuck what nobody said about Miles. Miles was always Miles, no matter what fuckin' music Miles was playing, it was Miles Davis. Miles was one of the most unique fuckin' musicians and I loved him not for his music but for his style, class, bravado. Everybody wanted to be like Miles. Cause, you know, Miles - the clothes, the dress, the women - cause Miles was a tough young motherfucker. That was our boy! You know, I got a passage in one of my poems in which I speak about Miles. Plus that's my father taught me about that. My father was a trumpet player, and there was some that he just dug. Nobody else. There was, of course, Satchmo, Pops, Miles, and this white guy from New Orleans Al Hirt. You ever heard of him?
SameOldShawn: I haven't
Umar Bin Hassan: Oh man, this big white boy from New Orleans. This boy, the sound, my daddy liked his sound. Look up Al Hirt; Google him. Those are three trumpeters, but more than Satchmo - he always respected Satchmo because he said Satchmo was the beginning - but he said Miles took it and gave it a whole nother tone. So that's why I love Miles. I grew up listening to Miles, you know, around my uncles, listening to some of his records. The thing that - I'm telling you, man, Shawn, I've been given some honors that I never thought I would get. It's like when the brother wrote the autobiography of Miles, and Miles said in that book that The Last Poets, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye inspired his 'On The Corner' album. You know, he's a man that I admire and he says I inspired him? We met Miles a couple of times. The first time I met him he was at -- it used to be the Forum, now it's the Staples Center, we did the Forum with him and Nina Simone. So the first time I met him - it was a hell of a concert - he said, "I love what you guys are doing. Keep it up, keep it up."