Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If you believe that there is a God, then you know that God doesn't show his face. He speaks to you, you feel him, but you've never seen him.
Do you know what kills me? The cropped hats. The beanies that are rolled up past your ears, in the summer as well! There's no function to it.
There wasn't any one particular moment where I realised, you know what, I'm going to be a musician. The decision more came from a lack of options.
Edgar Allan Poe is amazing because he was so dark. He's from Baltimore and so cynical that you can feel it when you're reading, it feels so honest.
I always wanted to be different. If it was different I liked it. And it wasn't because I was just trying so hard to be different, it's just by nature.
My mother was into church so she listens to gospel music. I like the way gospel is composed... the great vocalist chord and the way they make you feel.
I guess I'm kind of a sucker for the emotion of music. I guess it's kind of odd, but it's the way I appreciate music. I present my stuff that way as well.
When I started soul-searching, I tapped into the old me and what I grew up around. I learned a lot about myself, and it really made me appreciate my upbringing.
With 'At What Cost,' I was basically reliving a time in my life during the go-go era. I remember when it was popping for my generation and how that felt and what it looked like.
I could rap really good on accident. I talk tight and it just sounded... I don't know. It's just such a big genre for me. At the end of the day, rap is the language of the world.
If I'm too cocky or too arrogant, it's like, 'Ugh.' But if you're too on the other side, you take away some of those other emotional aspects, and I just kinda like to have a balance.
I was taught that poems don't end, they just kind of stop. There's never an ending to a poem; it's a continuation for later. When I write, I write for me, and I write in poetic form.
I knew that it's typical for a black kid to say, 'I'm just going to rap.' I was like, 'I'm going to rap, but I'm going to study, I'm going to figure out what this is and how to put it together.'
I just see potential in things that aren't there and how it's going to make you feel. Like, if it makes me feel a certain way, I try and create the vibe of how that felt to me. And try and create it for someone else.
Black culture is pop culture, Black History Month is every month, and that's something they want us to forget. What better way to remember than to highlight all of our differences as a singular people across the globe?
I'm gonna find creative ways to connect with people that actually matter and exist. That's kinda like my goal, like, how can we creatively do things in a different way so that we can actually get people and talk to them?
I don't believe in coincidences. I believe that things happen for a reason, and I think God has things - whether it's good or bad - happen towards a bigger picture that you don't necessarily understand at the present time.
I think for men and women, there's a different dynamic when it comes to love. Because I feel like a man who falls in love with a woman falls harder than a woman falling for a man. We're not emotionally as accepting as women are.
One of my friends is serving 33 years. Armed robbery. Those are the things you should rap about. I don't think you should glorify it at all. I don't really glorify it. I just talk about it. There's nothing special about that life.
Go-go is so drum and Congo based. It's almost like music from Africa. The drums like on 'Planet Paradise' are deeply African-rooted. It's really bouncy and the same speed as go-go music. That's an example of the influence go-go had on me.
Sober Thoughts' is a song about an unhealthy relationship I was in with a girl, where we would continue to mistreat each other, to spite each other. We were bad for each other, yet we always came back together, because we thought we 'loved each other.' It was a young love, not a forever love.
You know, I suffer kind of from survivor's guilt. It's like you suffer from success because you feel like - why me? Why am I so special? What makes me so different from the next man and why am I able to achieve these things that this person can't? Prayer is the only thing that helps me get through it.
I wasn't really actively trying to pursue music, so I was really just allowed to create freely without any pressure or outside influences like, 'Oh, I should be making this' or 'I should be collaborating with this person.' It was just kind of like whatever I wanted to do. I was just having fun with it.
I guess rap has such a bad name, because everybody can do it now, and that's probably why people don't want to be considered as rappers anymore, they're not taken seriously anymore. But yeah, rap is definitely the core of what I want to do. But I'm also an artist so I try to do as many things as I can, but I always keep rap in the equation.
