Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One thing I'm big on is believing in giving an album time. I'll say you'll have to give an album three years before you can call it a classic. If you can't listen to it three years later then it's not really a classic.
I'm working on a mixtape called I Made Hip-Hop Smile. It's going to be a free online mixtape. I think it's going to get some crazy buzz. We have a few marketing campaigns, that I think are going to make it pull through.
I understood my personal responsibility in putting Christ on the cross and the implications of how the Gospel impacts every area of life. It informs my identity as a human, as an artist, and as a citizen of this country.
I hope that people take away hope, maybe not in an obvious sense, but in the form of hearing somebody who's genuinely fighting to stay above water. And in that fight, there's hope. In that fight, maybe there's positivity.
My father was a musician, and I've always loved writing. I grew up in New York City during a time when hip hop music was surrounding you with the hip hop culture, and it felt natural. I was a really huge fan of the music.
Lauryn Hill might have cursed a couple of times in her music, and Missy Elliot definitely just doesn't care. I'm really more inspired by their creativity more so than just the cursing. I'm really impressed by clean music.
My videogame mind died after they stopped making wonderful escape worlds - every game just turned into me training to be in the army. But I used to love the Oddworld and 'Abe's Exoddus' and 'Abe's Oddysee' for Playstation.
A song is composed of music and lyrics: 50 percent is the producer, 50 percent is the artist. So, I'm responsible for 50 percent. All I know is that I have to do my job, and I have to do it well. And he has to do the same.
Like MCs, each chess player has his own style: how he likes to open, when he likes to attack. Just like we face off with each other lyrically, we challenge each other's minds on the chessboard. Sharpen each other's swords.
You don't need to be at a major, not at all. Technology being the way it is, and record sales being the way it is, there are not too many things that you need to depend on a label for that you can't go out and do yourself.
My biggest failure was trying to start and run a music label. The music industry was dying, and I wasn't ready to help other people the way that they needed to be helped. I was trying to, and I was stifling myself with it.
You already past 21 and you still talking about "I'ma be a rapper." You ain't did one show, niggas ain't seen you on TV. So Kendrick kind of went through the same thing I went through. He just had his mom's house to go to.
But I think your biggest crime as a citizen of society or America or the world is to be ignorant by choice. There's no excuse for that. I feel, when the information is at my fingertips, I could never choose to be ignorant.
When we're putting out records that people are responding to, it's amazing. And it's obviously what we shoot for every time. It's a tricky balancing act. But as long as it's sort of a righteous idea, then you're good to go.
I hate to see somebody get locked up, especially someone as talented as Lil Wayne. You know Wayne is a strong figure in the hip-hop marketplace, and for him to go away for 8 months, you know it's sad for hip-hop as a whole.
When we were growing up, I got kicked out of Timbaland's house every day. He was the DJ for my brother's rap group in junior high school. So I was 7, and while Tim's DJ'ing and my brother's rapping, I'd be upstairs dancing.
If I had interesting things to say, I would have been a speechwriter. I think it gets to musicians' heads a lot of the time. Just because people like your records doesn't mean what you have to say is going to be interesting.
I love the playfulness and braggadocio that accompanies a ton of rap music - that's basically what makes up the foundation for most rappers. But there is nothing 'weirder' to me than someone who has never doubted themselves.
While I understand the Howard Stern comparisons to help contextualize my craft for other people, and while I relate to the moral stance he took against a bigger corporate machine, that's probably where our similarities stop.
It's our responsibility for the village to say, 'Hey we're going to create these programs,' whether it's sports, creative arts, music, we need some things to give young people positive things to do, and that's including jobs.
Everything I'm saying shouldn't be taken so serious. I'm playing, but at the same token, I'm acknowledging that I'm not always the perfect man; I'm not always doing the right things. That's who I am. I'm working to be better.
I come from playing sports. I compete, so I gotta be better than I was last year. I gotta get better, and that better gotta come from just growing. From learning new stuff to working on it, experience it in life, and failing.
There's no set way to do anything. Sometimes you have to go outside the box; sometimes you can do things the standard way. Like, you don't have to have a beat to write a song: sometimes you can write lyrics without the music.
You put your blood, sweat, and tears into an album and you think that's where it ends, but no - when you go on tour you're still carrying the life of that album and the life of those songs until you put your next project out.
I'm a performer. That's what I do. That and making money - it's the passion and the care factor for the people that support your passion, the people that support you, it's the kind of people that go crazy and love your stuff.
I know so many people that were really able to lead 'perfect' lives. They meet the right person, they make the babies, they get the jobs, they get the house and it's essentially a smooth ride. That really didn't happen for me.
Most artists - painters or writers - I think create out of stress or negative situations. Look at rock music. It's about getting things off of your chest, and it's a means of venting in many ways. That's what my work is about.
I think all artists want that plaque, whether it's Gold or Platinum or multi-platinum. I think we all look forward to getting a plaque and hanging it on your wall and having something to show for the music that you've created.
I don't think about returning to the streets, 'cause I don't have any plans to return to the streets. I'm at another level in my life. Returning to the street - I still be in my streets when I get time to, when it's necessary.
Drawing and visual arts was kinda my first passion going all the way back to when I was a kid. I always felt like it was what I was supposed to do - but in reality I don't know that I ever had the skill to make it a profession.
Everyone just wants to feel good, and I don't think that all music is designed to make you feel good. Sometimes it's to make you feel amped, or angry, or nervous. I was listening to a lot of Public Enemy when I made the record.
You can't argue that hip-hop rots away the moral character of kids or rots their brain and still see middle-class white kids going to college who are listening to hip-hop. Going on to become healthy adults listening to hip-hop.
I feel like my lyrics are just dark and scathing. I feel like the lyrics on 'Darkest Before Dawn' are uncompromised hip-hop and really speaking to my core fan base. Basically what's been known in my discography the entire time.
I have a responsibility to my fellow my community, to my fellow man, and woman. With that said, I create from a place of selfishness, but I'm also cognizant of potential impact on others. And I try to make that impact positive.
I just want people to feel like they can achieve something great in their lives. We all go through rough times, but love is the antidote. You've got to dream and just believe in yourself. And if you believe, you will achieve it.
I believe that experimenting is what production is. But it doesn't mean much if you don't have a solid foundation in what you're experimenting with. You can't really deviate from music unless you know music; it's not gonna work.
There's no one aspect of my life that is more hidden than others. I mean, everything is pretty much an open book in every regard: relationships, personal, business, music, family, problems, demons, everything is well documented.
It's drones over Brooklyn, you blink, you could get tooken, And now you're understanding the definition of 'Crooklyn.' Pigs on parade, but bacon fryin' and cookin', Cause kids' tired of dyin' and walkin' round like they shooken.
The press has not done a fair job of exposing his [Bernie Sanders] policy. He has not had the television time that he deserves or that Hillary Clinton has. He has not had the ability to connect with black people in the mass way.
I was wondering if any of my faith was real at all, and I started to let go of a lot of things that I had learned and say, 'Maybe I just need to start over entirely with what I have learned about my faith.' And that's what I did.
Everything is always coming from something else. Even if you create something, it has to be inspired by something else. If you think of Apple and Steve Jobs, he had to be inspired by something that launched the ideas in his head.
Meek Mill - my homies used to call me 'Meek Millions,' and at the time I didn't have no millions, so I ain't really want to be called 'Millions,' so I just shortened it down to Meek Mill. 'Meek Milli,' my friends used to call me.
You're talking about a whole camera crew and being mic'd up professionally everyday and just having another group of people following you around. It's a little different than having friends pick up a camera and follow you around.
Coming up, you [got new] sneakers and you had to run outside to make sure everyone saw. It was on display. That's just part of Hip Hop culture, part of the competitive spirit of Hip Hop. This is not new, I don't believe it's new.
And being that my father is gone in immigrant and I have you know - that I owe my existence to immigration, I think that the fear of immigration that has existed in American history from the first day, I just find it to be wrong.
I believe that if you're an artist, it's like a gift. If you can do this for a living and you can be involved in it, it's something that you can't ignore. It's the chance for you to have a voice and create something from yourself.
I couldn't tell you what the standing is in radio, I'm in the streaming world. I'm in the podcasting world. Radio just sounds archaic almost. It's a never-ending battle. I'm so glad I'm retired so I don't have to see the nonsense.
The police are paid by the public and carry a public trust, and they take an oath to protect us as citizens. The police have lost sight of that and must be reminded that we pay them to protect us, not to simply engage and cage us.
After me and Daylyt built that relationship, they had a battle in the area and we finally wanted to go see one, live. We was cool with just watching it for a while until me and Daylyt got cool and I really wanted to go see it live.
I'm gonna put out another album and then another album after that. And then I'm gonna put out a mixtape, and then I'm gonna put out another ten songs, and then I'm gonna put out a hundred more songs and a thousand songs after that.