DX: [Laughing]
O: My thing is, you put a word in a dictionary, yet you want to make it illegal. You might as well make them all illegal. Webster, one man defined what the word meant. Why he gotta talk about us like that? That ain’t what we mean when we say that. [Laughing] You gotta understand the language. When you have a society wrapped around language and dialect, you’ll always have problems with what you mean when you say words like "muthafucka." I’m sorry muthafucka; I didn’t mean to say it like that. Nah, how am I gonna argue about that? You say potato, I say patotoe. Wise people never let grammar and language get in the way of your progress in the world. That’s how you get slowed down, by dealing with something as mundane as that. If you think about it, that’s ignorance. I don’t care is discussing it. All it does is slows down your creativity.

DX: You named your son, Nasir meaning “helper and protector” in Arabic, do you think your son has been a reflection of that?
O: Yeah, he’s done that as a human being. Not only through his art, but through his altruism and just by doing the best that he can do- as one person. I think he’s a hell of a guy. He’s just a regular person, as he should be. In my family we don’t allow men to get too out of pocket. They would be ashamed to do it, because that’s how we all connect.

DX: If you could pick any figure in history to compare your son to, who would it be and why?
O: I can’t find anybody because they can’t compare to Kid Wave. That was his name during the break dance era and that’s how he became known. If they can’t dance, I can’t compare him to any of them. I don’t trust people who can’t dance no way. I like them though.

DX: [Laughing] That’s funny.
O: [Laughing].

DX: At the end of your life’s span, what is it that you want Olu Dara to be remembered as?
O: Just as a regular family type of person who loved people and who liked to create. I love to create, from my own mind. I like instant creativity that leads to happiness. That’s giving. I said a lot, but all I meant was a guy that was doing the best he could at all times. I like that. I’m a non-slacker. You gotta be a slacker to be a non-slacker.

DX: Ha. Do you feel like you and your son have bridged the gap in black music?
O: Oh yeah. I think we did. We never thought that we would be well known or anything like that. I noticed you called me a Jazz musician, but that’s because I’ve played with Jazz musicians. I got my name through Jazz, but I didn’t grow up in the Jazz world, because there was no Jazz world in Mississippi when I grew up there. I became a Jazz musician because there was nothing else I could do, that would give me recognition and there was nowhere else I could make money at the time. It was good thing that I did go into it, but I never studied it, I solely felt it. I was going through he roots music of Mississippi. I was in a position to do world music, because nobody was really accepting that music. I was in Jazz for less than ten years. When I got the opportunity to do it again, I did.

DX: How big of a role do you think black music plays in the role of black progression in America?
O: Well, it plays the entire role, basically. This is how black America really communicates. We don’t have the time to hang around each other every night. They communicate closer through music and it’s been that way since the beginning. Even when we don’t directly communicate with each other we can communicate with the universe. The music helps other people of other cultures, even if they despise us. It’s the feeling and it’s eccentric. Without music, it would be nothing out here.

DX: How do you think your life has manifested through your son?
O: Well he’d doing what I did for my father. They were artists and we kept the tradition going on. It happened way before I was born. My aunt told me my great uncles traveled through “Rabbits-Foot” shows. Rabbit’s Foot [click here] was shows back in Mississippi and the last show was in Natchez, my hometown. My great uncles, used to play in those places with Ma Rainy and Bessie Smith. It's been going on for generations in Natchez. He didn’t even think he was doing anything special and neither do I. We do it because it’s who we are.