Heard a beautiful quote related to that on NPR. They had a guitarist who was heavily inspired by Django Reinhard, but does his own thing now. The way he put it

Heard a beautiful quote related to that on NPR. They had a guitarist who was heavily inspired by Django Reinhard, but does his own thing now. The way he put it: "At some point, I realized that I could either imitate Django and live in his shadow, or learn from him and live in his light". (Paraphrased)