Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I wanted to be the most famous. And it wasn't until I hung out with Justin Bieber that the whole thing got demystified. The mystique of it was gone.
My favorite color is jungle green. At least, that's what it said on the side of my favorite crayon in first grade. I don't know if it's an official color.
So I'm in the library, and I have keyboards out and my headphones out. Everybody's like, "Mike are you making beats right now?" and I'm like, "Yeah... sorry!"
It's always hard for an artist from the U.K. to break into the United States. It's especially harder for a rapper because hip-hop is such an American art form.
I try to tell the truth in my lyrics; write good melodies and make hard beats. So, basically, I just combine hip-hop with melody. That's how I classify myself.
I was a paperboy first, then I worked at a movie theater. But I was a caddie at a golf club, which I didn't like. The people were so bougie and racist at times.
Just be yourself and be upfront about your expectations and desires. Don't be ambiguous and play hard to get. It doesn't work. You'll end up in the friend zone.
When I was a kid, my parents were always like, 'Money doesn't buy happiness.' I thought, 'You just didn't make enough money.' I had to go find it out for myself.
Nothing means more to me than making the best music and me getting better as a writer and producer... I want you to know I work really hard. The bar is really high.
From what I understand about Shakespeare - which isn't a lot - there was no copyright law when he was writing. He sampled at will, and it wasn't seen as a bad thing.
It's like, we all grow up thinking it would be so nice to have hundreds of people falling over themselves trying to grab us, telling us we're great, that they love us.
There was a time when being loaded and loved and popular really mattered a lot to me. I'd say that when I was less popular, I learned to be happy without those things.
I had an initial wave of popularity that, in time, crashed, and I slowly became less popular and less successful, and I had to figure out who I was without those things.
I realized that a lot of people in my family had sacrificed for me to have the opportunity to go to a place like Duke. I owed it to them to finish. I graduated with a 3.6.
You need to stop looking outside and look inside - and it's such a good feeling. A feeling of love and that everything is going to be OK, and all you have to do is nothing.
I've always had an eclectic taste in music. But what I try to do is combine these things in ways that others would never think of, like putting Bun B on an Elton John song.
I didn't really experience any hardship like people tend to think of when they hear the words 'Detroit, Michigan.' I think Big Sean is a much better ambassador for the city.
I was constantly looking for things outside of myself to make me feel good, and I think now that feeling can come from the inside, and that's why I meditate now twice a day.
I struggled with depression when I was in high school, and I remember thinking that if I got a record deal and got a hit song, that it would solve all those problems for me.
When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want.
I was trying to maintain a facade of infallibility, which is exhausting. Like, I used to wear tons of makeup because I had bad skin. I couldn't go out in public without makeup on.
I thought, 'Oh that's what happens. You put a song out and everyone likes it.' Well, then a funny thing happened: I started putting more songs out, and none of them did the same thing.
I wanted to break into producing, so I would peddle my tracks and beats to labels. I always heard the same thing: They liked the music, but it didn't fit any of the artists on their roster.
I looked at myself and realized I had a lot of boundaries up about what I would talk about, what was private for me and what wasn't. I decided to just get rid of them. It was quite liberating.
It's just about being honest. I listen to a lot of stuff that's out there, some of which I wrote, and I'm like, 'Where is that? Where's the honesty?' So that's what I want to get to in my music now.
I made a CD in my dorm room and put it on the Internet, and my friends blew it up. Within a few months, I was doing shows across the country without a record deal, without a single, without anything.
All my music is autobiographical, and that's the reason why people like my music. They know when I'm saying something on a song, I mean it. It comes from a real place and captures the realness in my life.
When I recorded 'Cooler Than Me', I had been singing for like, three months at the most. I was just a producer experimenting with my voice on tracks, and now I'm, like, a really good singer in a legit way.
I grew up making music in my mum's basement, and I used to tell her I was going down there to work, and she'd say, 'That's not work. Go get a real job!' It took me signing a record deal to change her opinion!
Tons of people inspire my music, and now when I do an interview, I'm scared to say who they are. I'm scared to give gratitude to the people that, if I hadn't heard their stuff, I wouldn't be able to make music.
When I went to college, I made my first mixtape, and Sean gave me three verses for it. That was a big reason anyone ever listened to my music. I definitely wouldn't be talking to you now if it wasn't for Big Sean.
How can a song all about struggling with the afterglow of fame thrust someone into fame? How can a lyric like, 'I'm just a singer who already blew his shot,' give a singer another shot? I don't know... but it's funny.
A lot of people considered my career as an artist largely over. Two albums got shelved. But I've made music since I was a little kid, and for the majority of that time, I wasn't paid for it. So I will always be making it.
I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn't love myself enough. But now I realize that when you're an artist, you're making the music that's in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason.
I think I was blessed with this talent for a reason. No one told me how to write a song, but I'm just good at it, you know. There are a lot of other things in my life that I'm not so good at, but writing a song is not one of them.
I remember I wanted to be an athlete. I wanted to be in the NFL or NBA or something, and I don't think I dreamed of being a benchwarmer. I'm sure I wanted to be the best. But I didn't really ever think I was going to be a famous musician.
I've only had success when I'm not trying to. It's that weird thing where if you're trying to impress a girl, you're not going to impress her. But if you aren't trying to impress a girl, you'll probably impress her because you're not trying.
That's why I make mixtapes. That's why I work with Don Cannon; that's why i work with Big Sean. Even though I don't rap, I got love and acceptance in that community, and that's something that I really take seriously and hold close to my heart.
I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning.
It's important to me that my songs actually make sense. So often, I turn on the radio, and I have no idea what the people are singing about. It may sound good, but when you listen, they're just saying words that rhyme. It's another song about nothing.
If my career was a basketball season, I'm in the pre-season still. I'm not blowing everybody out by 40 - there's so much work to be done, and there's no time to really sit and look back and be proud of what I've done yet, because it's the pre-season still.
In my short career, I tend not to repeat myself. I have no interest in redoing something. Sometimes that makes people angry, and maybe it's not the best thing for me commercially. But it's the best thing for me artistically, and it's the best thing for my heart.
I've remixed lots of other people's songs, from Adele to Electric Light Orchestra to Beyonce, so when my record label said, 'Why don't you give 'Ibiza' to someone to remix?' I said, 'Sure,' because I like the idea of people reimagining art and making something new out of it.
Duke is in extremely competitive environment. In my high school, I think I got one B my whole four years. I was used to being the smartest kid in every class I was in, and then I went to Duke and suddenly I was the dumbest kid in every class. Everybody there is up to something.
My favorite Duke player ever is Steve Wojciechowski. He called me one day congratulating me on my success thus far, and I was like,'I appreciate it, but man, please don't congratulate me. I know when you guys start the season, you're not just trying to be 10-10 or ACC champions, you're trying to win it all.'
I was really lucky to grow up in an extremely diverse neighborhood. I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning.
I remember being 24 in Los Angeles. And up until that moment, when my mom would call my cell phone and it would ring, I would be flushed with some sort of excitement that we all have - a little dopamine rush, when my phone rings - and I'd look down, and it would say, 'Mom.' It used to feel like a job to pick that up.
I really look up to Louis C.K. I think he's great. And obviously he's very popular, more popular than me. Years ago, I was thinking, naively, it would be great to be that popular. And then I thought about it and then I realized that, with his money and his level of notoriety, he has all of the same emotions that I do.
I think that's what makes my music different from other artists in my lane is that I write every word that's on my album, and every word comes from a real experience or a real feeling that I've either experienced or felt. And I'm very particular about that, and I take a lot of pride in it, so you know if I say something on a song, I mean it.
I think Taylor Swift is a really good artist. I feel like her personality shines through everything she does, her music, her fashion, her style. She won Album of the Year, and she’s a really good writer. I’m a song writer so I respect artists who write their own songs. She won Album of the Year when she was 18 or something like that so, I think she’s dope.