Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm really excited about breaking new acts. While I'm trying to preserve the culture and make sure I fight for the acts that the major labels have thrown away, you can't throw away Musiq Soulchild, Kelly Price and Jon B.
If you listen to Bryson Tiller's record, there's some real music. There's some trap stuff, but if you listen to what's on top of that stuff, that's real music. I look at that and I know it's real. I respect it immensely.
Every time I'm out and somebody tells me they love what I do, that's what I do it for. That's like my vice. That's like my high. When people understand that this is who I really am, and to be appreciated for your craft .
I'm trying to bring the romance back to music. Old school... Music is meant to be a part of your blood stream, and if it doesn't affect your bloodstream, then you may as well put it back in the shoebox underneath the bed.
I like Obama, but I understand that his hands are tied, the way Congress is reacting. It's just partisan politics everywhere, and don't know how we going to get things done in the future without compromising a little bit.
Without the Fender bass, there'd be no rock n' roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting 'round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything.
I love when people mirror themselves in my music, and I think that's the whole point of it - not telling people what it is or how they're supposed to feel... but you having a relationship with my song makes it real to me.
Politics changes music most of the time. Ronald Reagan - you can kind of say that he made hip-hop what it was by the embargoes that he set. Certain things that he did created N.W.A in a way. Politics has always done that.
I think we have to change our thinking and the music industry has to shift and look at how people are acquiring their music now. They want it differently. They're getting it in a different way and you just have to adjust.
It's been a growth process for each of us to understand why we find certain things beautiful. And if we do find something beautiful, we'll chase it, because you want to understand yourself and what your psyche is creating.
If I crave a frequency in the mid, I'll just drag in a sound and try to mold it into what feels right. It happens very quickly. And if I've been making a piece of music for five hours and it sucks, I'll just throw it away.
When I'm dead, somebody can write my biography. I wrote a national hymn, an anthem, which I don't want to present to that country. But I have a deal with my wife - when I'm dead, she should offer it, because then I'm safe.
I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself.
I love makin' music, so whether I'ma make money at it or not, I'ma still do it. The thing is, I've gotten to a point where I don't have to use music to make a livin', so I can do it for fun like I used to when I was young.
Do I have YOUR permission to be a Supernatural God? If I want to open heaven, and in a moment in time, touch the heart of a daughter and supernaturally break all the darkness, shame, and torment in her life, MAY I DO THAT?
I had Ice Cube on my first album, "Bunker," and then I did a remix for Snoop Dogg. I've worked with Grandmaster Flash and Pharrell. It's a different work process and there's a different take with how you produce [hip-hop].
My father was a carpenter, a very good carpenter. He also worked for the Jones boys. They were not family members, we weren't related at all. They started the policy racket in Chicago, and they had the five and dime store.
I love Stuart Scott. There are a lot of people that tore down barriers that we don't really acknowledge sometimes. He was one. I think James Brown was too. That cat was a soul brother when it wasn't very popular to be one.
In this age when people expect to get their music for free, we have to work out how we can protect the rights of creative artists so they are compensated fairly and that the record business itself remains sound and healthy.
Having lost both my parents as a teenager, family is so important to me, and I cherish my time with my children and grandchildren. I have four children, and they all became lawyers - as I was myself before I got into music.
I'm always open, and will criticize myself, too. And I just think being that honest with everybody puts you in a different space than somebody who's just shooting venom at a certain group or a certain amount of individuals.
'Dance to the Music' was just Sly Stone being his natural crazy self right from the beginning. The man was an original and his first AM hit was nothing if it wasn't the example per excellence of the Sly Stone music machine.
People are always coming up to me, thinking I've got some magic wand that can make them a star and I want to tell them that no one can do that. Making hit records is not that easy. But it took me time to realize that myself.
I like the sounds of EDM; the guys create new sounds, beautiful sounds. The melodies, it's a little less. I like the kind of melodies I did with Donna Summer, or 'Flashdance,' where you have a verse, a chorus - a song setup.
It's always been jewelry, clothes, appearance. Those are things that compete with the car. But the car is the ultimate. Get that car right and it doesn't matter what you got on or what you wear once you step out of that car.
This country belongs to all of us. We made this country from nothing, from mud-flats... Over 100 years ago, this was a mud-flat, swamp. Today, this is a modern city. Ten years from now, this will be a metropolis. Never fear!
My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children's books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.
Everything happens kind of the way it's supposed to happen, and we just watch it unfold. And you can't control it. Looking back, you can't say, "I should've..." You didn't, and had you, the outcome would have been different.
Inventors often don't know how to pitch their ideas. So many people in Silicon Valley want to hear you say 'disruptive,' and tote a 'platform.' They repeat buzzwords over and over, and I think it intimidates a real inventor.
When I was younger, I used to say, 'I'm not making music. I am getting catharsis for emotion.' For me, vulnerability is an act of uncovering. It's a revealing: the idea of putting aside your armour and allowing pain to enter.
I had no idea that I was ever getting into music. I did not prepare for a music career, and here I've found, out of pure luck, that I did have, not only a talent and an ear, but a passion for music. And I have it to this day.
I designed a sports car, the Cizeta-Moroder, with Marcello Gandini from Lamborghini; he did the Countach, of course. The Cizeta cost $600,000, but we could bargain - if a Japanese businessman says he wants it for three, fine.
On the surface, rock and roll changes at an amazing pace. The influence of a figure like the Maharishi can appear and disappear in a matter of months. Talk about old fashioned rock and roll finds itself dead before it begins.
Music is a solace for me now. As I age, contrary to common sense, I am more and more drawn into it and apt to spend more of my waking and some of my sleeping hours thinking about it, or just feeling about it. It is my escape.
Everything happens kind of the way it's supposed to happen, and we just watch it unfold. And you can't control it. Looking back, you can't say, 'I should've... ' You didn't, and had you, the outcome would have been different.
When I say dance music, it's anything that makes me want to dance. It could be Timbaland and Missy Elliott, but it could also be disco music and samba music: It's not relying on melody in the same way; it's more about rhythm.
It's funny how people who ain't never been down there can think that America is so fair and that we should be alright. It's funny that the people who have their foot on our neck are telling us, 'Get up. What's wrong with you?'
Everything I do, whether it's producing or signing an artist, always starts with the songs. When I'm listening, I'm looking for a balance that you could see in anything. Whether it's a great painting or a building or a sunset.
I don't just do music for the clubs, I do music for the struggle. I do music for everyday niggas, the kids who ain't got no sense of direction. I'm trying to restore some of the morals back into the game, as far as the street.
I had to learn, because as an artist myself, an artist owns that right to protect their interest of how they want to roll their project out. It's just important to give them that opportunity to roll it out the way they want to.
Some summers my father would take us down to visit our grandmother in Louisville, who was an ex-slave, Susan Jones, and she had a shotgun shack they call it, and no electricity, a well in the back, a coal stove, kerosene lamps.
I hoped that being attracted to men might go away, but what I never ever hoped would go away were the feelings of femininity, and of softness and fragility, that could live inside of a boy. They were private, but they were mine.
It was very punk rock for me to take a stab at working with Justin Bieber. I don't know how people portray that, or 'Climax,' for that matter. But for me, it was the most adventurous thing I could have done at that exact moment.
It's a very interesting thing because I can start mixing a song and leave the room and come back and maybe just slide one lever to a certain point, and it just - it's a certain feeling that it gives you when you know it's right.
What I was trying to convey there was the kind of waste land that was left after the war. It was a bit like one always thinks of war, you know, stark scenery and no birds, no trees, no leaves, nothing living. And just emptiness.
I figured, when I make a movie, especially earlier in my career, one thing I was going to make sure was that the movie doesn't cost a lot and that it has potential to make a lot of money. That's how you get respect in Hollywood.
I don't know what's my first real memory. When you're little, you're always looking forward to days that are special, like Christmas, birthdays, the Fourth of July, and family gatherings. But I can't pinpoint my earliest memory.
With film, I have to be a team player; it's a whole different thing. I can't just be a one-man show. I have to learn how to use people to the best of their ability and motivate them to be as passionate about the project as I am.
The only criticism heard with any frequency of Elton John's first American album, 'Elton John,' was that the production was too grandiose. The melodies were superb, and lyrics frequently very good, and the performances flawless.
My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies, and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between.