Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Jimmy Iovine signed me personally to a million-dollar contract, and I lost my identity for a long time. That system is so predicated on making a hit, or you're out of here.
I could have worked with great people like Nile Rodgers, which I regret. I don't have many regrets, but I remember he'd shown some interest, and I was just in my own world, man.
I became Fantastic Negrito, and I felt like there was a rawness and an honesty in that music that I could relate to. That I was ready, finally, in my life to be that honest with myself.
I came up with the album name 'Please Don't Be Dead' because I felt like we'd lost our way as a society - and I know what happens when you chase the wrong things. It's the story of my life.
What did winning a Grammy do for me? It made me want to get rid of my Grammy, pack it away, and never see it again. It made me not want to speak to anyone who wanted to speak about my Grammy.
I wanted to do life, do something interesting. I ran out of things I wanted to say in my music, so I just put it down, sold all my gear, and put on some overalls and reconnected with the soil.
I don't mind being the voice of the New Oakland to maintain the integrity and edge of it. Old Oakland and New Oakland is one and the same. It's connected. I aspire to be the bridge between both.
'Fantastic' is self-explanatory, you know? And the 'Negrito' is a way to open up blackness to everyone - you know, make it playful, international. It's extremely positive in my view; it's my affair with this music.
I take the purest and hardest forms of music... and come in completely fresh from a production standpoint. It's like hip-hop production, because there's a lot of taking the best parts and a lot of the repetitiveness.
So-called leaders aren't doing anything, so it's become the job of artists like me. We have to get on the front lines and fight for the people who have love and tolerance in their hearts and want to live in a unified world.
I heard Skip James, and it pierced me. It felt like punk rock to me, real and raw. It was just one guitar, so simple yet so much expression. I wanted to feel and express like that, to take the shortest path to get to an emotion.
Prince was a hero. He was the brother, the black man that was a little different. As a kid, you thought, 'Wow, he's different. If he can do it, I can do it.' I read that he was self-taught, so I started teaching myself to play the piano.
Nothing unifies people more than music, more than that universal riff. The one thing that unifies us and the hope that we can have, especially being an artist, is that we can create music that can build bridges and smash down very bad ideas.
I had a dream, as young people have quite idealistic dreams and goals, of, 'I'm going to go to Los Angeles, and I'm going to become a star!' I did get this huge record deal, and I recorded this music under Xavier. That didn't really work out.
When I look into the audience, and I just know we understand each other, I can see their faces, and they know what I'm talking about. I feel like I've helped. Everything I've been through in my life, it helps people. Then that makes it worth it.
Doing a concert, I look at a room full of different people, and I see you've got Muslims, you've got Jews, you've got Christians, you've got gays, you've got straights, you've got blacks, you've got whites. I think, 'How can I unite these people through song?'
What I decided was I'd be happier not being in the confines of a corporate infrastructure producing music. That's when I was free, and it opened up the door to have a different personality and incarnations. That's really when I had success in my music life. I was able to license my music.
When I was a youngster, I wrote all this music - it just came out of me - and I think record executives were like, 'Oh, wow, he's a genius, let's give him a million dollars!' But the minute I started producing the records, they'd be like, 'Oh, my God, you're terrible! You're all over the place! We can't market this!'
I usually go to secondhand stores and find what I can. I like finding interesting things: vests, blazers. I tell the band, 'We got to look good when we're up there.' I learned it from Miles Davis. I read about his suits in his biography. Suits mean you're getting paid, and I like the idea that he looked good in his suits.