Bonobo

Musician

1976-03-30

Bonobo is an English musician, producer, and DJ known for downtempo and electronic compositions with organic instrumentation. He emerged through the Ninja Tune scene and developed an internationally recognized live-band format. His work spans electronica, jazz-influenced textures, and global collaboration.

Quotes by Bonobo

You can't live in the times that you live in and be exposed to all the new music that's happening, ignore it all, and carry on doing the same stuff as you were ten years ago.
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Yeah, it's a kind of weird thing because I don't define myself as an electronic musician. It's certainly a part of it, and you know I have a band as well, and we go on a tour bus like other bands.
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Whenever l've travelled l've found myself affected in conflicted ways. Sometimes the new experiences inspire a path of self discovery, but at other points those situations can highlight insecurities and bring about feelings of displacement.
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I was in bands, like everyone else, when I was 16, 17; I was a little skater listening to Dead Kennedy's and Steel Pole Bath Tub. It was through early 90s Hip Hop that I found my way to Soul and Funk, and then out the other side into beats.
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In the very beginning, I kind of had this hip-hop, cut-and-paste approach to music. The first record, especially, was from looking at people like DJ Shadow and A Tribe Called Quest, and I think a phase that a lot of people go through when they start sampling is to go out and stamp on twigs and try to record that kind of stuff.
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My parents and two sisters were great musicians but my family's approach to music was always way more academic than mine. They were virtuoso players. But they were all impressed that I could sit down at a piano and find a melody. We had a different approach, we had mutual envy.
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The process of making music is very therapeutic; it's late at night and I'm wearing headphones a lot of the time, so it becomes a way of zoning out and engaging with my thoughts. It's a solitary environment and process.
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