Producer legend shocks with blunt opinions on key figures in the music world.
Legendary 28-time Grammy Award winner Quincy Jones, 85, believes U2 are over, the Irish are racist, and the Catholic Church is a money-grabbing fraud.
He made the comments in an interview with Vulture Magazine. He also slammed Michael Jackson for being cheap, the Beatles for bad guitar playing and he also mocked Ringo Starr's drumming.
Bono entered the conversation when Jones was discussing racism in the modern era.
“It’s still fucked up. 1964, when I was in Vegas, there were places I wasn’t supposed to go because I was black, but Frank [Sinatra] fixed that for me. It takes individual efforts like that to change things. It takes white people to say to other white people, “Do you really want to live as a racist? Is that really what you believe?” But every place is different.
Read more: Is Ireland a racist society? Many immigrants there believe so
"When I go to Dublin, Bono makes me stay at his castle because Ireland is so racist. Bono’s my brother, man. He named his son after me."
Asked if U2 were still making good music Jones shook his head and said, "I don’t know. I love Bono with all my heart, but there’s too much pressure on the band. He’s doing good work all over the world. Working with him and Bob Geldof on debt relief was one of the greatest things I ever did. It’s up there with “We Are the World.”"
Though deeply charitable, Jones has nothing good to say about Catholicism.
"No, man. I know too much about it. I knew Romano Mussolini, the jazz piano player, the son of Benito Mussolini. We used to jam all night. And he’d tell me about where the Catholics were coming from. The Catholics have a religion based on fear, smoke, and murder.
"And the biggest gimmick in the world is confession: “You tell me what you did wrong and it’ll be okay." Come on. And almost everywhere you go in the world, the biggest structures are the Catholic churches. It’s money, man. It’s f***ed up.”"
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