Ali Shaheed Muhammad

Raphael Saadiq said to me, quite often, that Chuck D was his history teacher. And so he got a lot from the music, things that he wasn't getting maybe in school. And I feel the same way with regards to Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder.

Music is an important thing of energy. And there are a lot of wonderful aspects that come with it and vibrations, the physical vibrations, the movement of notes through an instrument and creating a wave that resonates into our spirit.

When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.

It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits.