There's something that human beings cannot resist when we feel that. That's the heartbeat of Mother Earth you're listening to. I think that is evident in the music, in the drum beat, especially of Africa. "What has become attractive to that ruling tribe is the reminder that that's where we all come from. But most indigenous cultures of the world-African or Indian, the native tribes of South America-they're very much in touch with the earth, very much in touch with their own spirituality and the spirituality of the earth. "You look at the Victorian world-and England is still like this-and find it very staid and intellectual, very much in denial of our animal, or what I call our human side. "The ruling tribe of our country is Caucasian Americans-the Caucasian European tribe," he said. Researching background material for "Ragtime"-"my favorite thing about doing a show is the research," he said-he came to feel that tribalism lies at the heart of many of America's problems and that music can help resolve them. The son of a world-travelling Defense Department civilian engineer, Mitchell, 39, was born in Seattle and grew up in such diverse places as Guam, the Philippines and San Diego. Except nowadays, they have car commercials with rap in them." I thought they could have taken out the word `ragtime' and put in `rap,' and it's exactly what some people would say about rap. I was reading something in one of the books about Scott Joplin-some of the criticism of ragtime. When ragtime first got into proper households, it was considered whorehouse music, but it eventually was accepted by proper households. It really captures the zeitgeist of that time. "The African rhythm, the march bass, the syncopated thing going on with the right hand. "Ragtime was one of those forms that could only have been born in this country, where you have that mixing of cultures," Mitchell said.
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