Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I spent six figures of my own money to get a tour bus and do a fan tour for my second album. I surprised fans at their houses, and we'd eat food and play video games.
I know who I am, and I know my story, and the things that I talk about are authentic and real, and I always say this: I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not.
I wake up every day, I deal with hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars. I fund my tours by myself. I do merch by myself. I employ people. I have my own successful company.
I have seven brothers and sisters, and I'm the only one who looks white because my mother has had children by all black men, and then my father has children with other women as well.
Sometimes I watch movies. I don't party. I don't go out. It's just me and my homies in our circle. I stay away from everyone and everything so I can just continue to remain who I am.
I truly believe that if I'm out partying and not in the studio, there's somebody out there who will be. When I'm asleep, somebody else is working. So, I have a lot of sleepless nights.
The biggest part of why I am where I am today is not only because people can relate to me and my story but because I hit the road and actually saw them face to face and shook their hands.
I was really scared to make this album and to make this song. Because I didn't want to talk about it. For me, it's even deeper than just '1-800.' 'Everybody' as a whole... I was terrified.
Nobody knows this, but the first actual purchase, after I signed my deal and called my bank account and heard how much money was in there - 'cause I was so broke and hungry - was Taco Bell.
I'm literally fighting for the equality of every man, woman and child regardless of race, religion, color, creed, and sexual orientation and here to spread a message of peace, love, and positivity.
Black folk who don't realize I'm mixed will treat me like I'm some racist person, or when white people find out I'm black, they treat me with racism, and I don't feel like I belong or fit in anywhere.
You can't put my talents in a box because my talents have put me in a mansion, and I'll be damned if anybody in the world can tell me what I can or cannot do, because they're scared to do it themselves.
I enjoy certain things, but I don't go out; I don't party. I just like watching movies, making fun music, and having a good time hanging out with the people who helped me get here - I'm a really simple guy.
When I was, like, 18, that's when I started to really take my own craft seriously and just noticed people were enjoying it. And when I put out my first mixtape, that's when I realized I could make this a career.
I realized that everybody is a critic. They're going to say they hate you, they love you, they this, they that, but at the end of the day, no matter what, I have to be confident in myself as a man and an artist.
I was a little nervous that people wouldn't take to 'Under Pressure,' because my style and what I embodied had previously been the braggadocious '90s fun rapper type. Before this album, I didn't rap about my life much.
When I grab the microphone, I am the greatest rapper, musician, and artist that ever lived, ever, in the entire universe - but when I put that microphone down, I am a man with so much to learn, personally and professionally.
I don't care if you're Christian, you're Muslim, you're gay, you're straight - I am here to fight for your equality. Because I believe that we are all born equal, but we are not treated equally, and that is why we must fight.
I grew up on Wu-Tang and Tribe and Nas, all the raw, very New York-driven music. Then when I got older - in my late teens, early twenties - and that's when I started to listen to Drake and J. Cole, and so it wasn't just East-coast.
I'm not just going to get a deal; I'm going to get the deal. And in my deal I got by signing with No I.D. to Def Jam, I got full creative control, the money was great, the contract was good, and I got to create the album that I wanted.
Not to sound cliche, but some of the first things that I bought were for my homies and my team: making sure the people that helped me and ensured my security and safety during my come-up, while I was broke, had the opportunity to be okay.
Producing isn't just making beats on a beat machine. It's bringing together these string players with this flute player and this singer, and telling them to all work in the key of C major... You bring these people together and let them all cook.
If you don't wake up and have your own thing, whether it's writing or reading or traveling or acting or dancing or singing or being a mother or a father, something that drives you, then it's all worth nothing. One of the key elements in happiness is purpose.
People try to tell me like that, 'Oh, you shouldn't be proud,' or, 'You're not this,' or, 'You aren't that,' or whatever the hell. I'm just kinda here to say, like, who is anybody else to tell me who I am or what I've gone through or what I haven't gone through?
On the second half of 'Under Pressure,' I talk about my family, and there are voicemails on my phone from when I was on the road that actually make up the second half of the nine-minute song. I transcribe them and rap them as if I were my sister, my brother, or my father.
Forever, for me, it was just about trying to make it and become a known person and loved and revered in hip-hop and the culture. But then ,I even realized that that isn't really important. What's mainly important is just the fans and the connection that you have as a man and an artist.
Drake doesn't realize, in many ways, he was like the big brother I never had. He set the example and paved the way for me to be myself. Now, whether I'm at the Grammys or whether I'm here or there or whatever, he'll show me love... People don't realize what that's like, what that means.
Everybody has culture, even white people have culture, but its different with me. So in high school, I was hanging out with the black and Hispanic kids. I'm not hating on white people. I hang with white people, too, but that's where I felt most accepted because I could relate to them more.
There are certain artists that get into the little circle in hip-hop, and everybody is talking about them, and they are buzzing. But they can't go out and sell out tours, perform in front of 3,000 people a night, and things like that. We did things backwards; with Visionary, we got all the fans first.
Fans tend to think that if you fall in love with an artist... and then he gets bigger, and he grows, and he starts to make a different sound, 'He's changing on us.' But with me, I created all types of sounds from the get go, so you can never say I'm changing; you can never say I'm going mainstream or I'm selling out.
I'm proud to be biracial, and there's a lot of people that say things like, 'I don't see color,' and I completely understand that, but I think different is beautiful, but I think our difference shouldn't separate us, and for me in this era, in this time, in everything that we're going through, my whole thing is just about unity, man.
