As we get further into our career we're figuring out how to become more efficient as artists, and doing so many different things is testament to our cohesiveness as the Roots.

New artists, it seems to me, have to learn the mechanics of computing/programming and - possessing a vision unhumbled by technology - use them to disassemble/recreate the Web.

Most of the more celebrated names among African-American authors, poets, and artists are known to the world because of their association with specific cultural arts movements.

I'd been doing my own thing, and making my own money; I wasn't built by a record label or the music industry, nor was I built by prominent artists that have given me co-signs.

These critics with the illusions they've created about artists - it's like idol worship. They only like people when they're on their way up... I cannot be on the way up again.

I like writing different types of music. I like writing Christian music. I like collaborating with Christian artists. We have a Christian following. I love writing kids' music.

Expression without culture is flat. Many artists come out of art school and start doing things that don't last. They are audacious because of ignorance. They are irresponsible.

Just as Renaissance artists provided narratives for the era they lived in, so do I. I'm always looking beyond the surface. I've done that ever since I first picked up a camera.

I've been a huge fan of Adele, Sam Smith, and Ed Sheeran, and those amazing artists draw inspiration from their present and past experiences; they write songs from their heart.

It's important for artists to value themselves - whatever that means. Everyone's going to take that in a different way. If you don't value yourself, you will be bought and sold.

Technology is huge; I wanted to learn about it. People might say that's odd, but I think it's odd if artists aren't interested in the world around them. I'm always chasing that.

I wish I was better at art. I love some of the great artists of the 19th century and, compared to them, I just feel I lack this technique that they had. They have so much skill.

I grew up with all kinds ofmusic, but my heart was particularly drawn to Country Music because of the guitar playing, the lyrics and of artists like Steve Warner and Vince Gill.

I take enormous pleasure in seeing artists go out and sing my songs, or being in the corner of a festival, and everyone's singing along, and no one knows that you've written it.

Bands like Culture Club and artists like me, you tend to concentrate on the live arena because that's where you can be your most authentic. That's where you have the most power.

The real artists are ultimately people who don't consider their audience and are almost incapable of considering their audience. They can do what they do and fire themselves up.

I guess I get bored easily, and thank God. I don't want to all my life pound only the same key, although some artists do it very effectively. I'm not trying to denigrate anybody.

Con artists specialize in finding what people need, and Trump knows the media craves variety, scandal, secrets, and he-said-she-said stories, even of the most dubious provenance.

I feel like traditional artists feel like everything that they do has to be perfect and touched up, and it has to be about something that would be able to be played on the radio.

First of all, I respect The Game. He's trail-blazed for artists like myself. I appreciate him, having - living in L.A. myself and knowing what he stands for and what he stood for.

I'm sure Madonna has been a huge influence for many female artists. Her live shows always make a massive impact; the sets are amazing, and she's always trying new things on stage.

I own works by women artists; it is hard for me to see, literally to see, how women and men differ in the quality of their work. Why are women artists less known and less admired?

All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men; and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.

And it's sad because it's like a surprise to people - almost an anomaly - when artists are actually refined and trained on an instrument. That's the last thing people think about.

Actually, I think that a lot of the interviews and acoustic sessions and other things that artists fill their time with are really pointless and suck the energy out of the artist.

As long as artists arbitrarily assume the right to decide what is or is not art, it is logical that the public will just as arbitrarily feel that they have the right to reject it.

I am a fortunate man in that all three of my daughters are exceptional. Very high beings, very smart people, very wonderful and very brilliant, very beautiful. They're all artists.

Ideally, it would be cool to actually get to know artists enough to know what their feelings are, what they believe in, what they want people to get from them, what they represent.

Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.

Too many younger artists, critics, and curators are fetishizing the sixties, transforming the period into a deformed cult, a fantasy religion, a hip brand, and a crippling disease.

Those nations of artists, finding their own individualism, and kind of standing against the world: to me that's the ultimate nightmare. I want to get lost and diffused in the world.

I try to do a lot of asymmetrical, triangular compositions - I find those work really well for comic book covers in that portrait mode, and I don't always see that in other artists.

Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.

I like to watch 'Grey's Anatomy' when I'd doing cardio. But, sometimes I do need good music to get me moving. I like high energy songs by artists like Justin Timberlake and Rihanna.

You've gotta motivate kids. They wanna grow up. They got problems. You've gotta give 'em that music to make 'em feel like they're OK, and it's only a couple of artists that do that.

I'm beyond thankful to be picked as one of MTV's favourite new artists for 2017. I've always viewed MTV as ever evolving, and to be a part of this new chapter is extremely rewarding.

Artists don't always know. Almost every song I ever recorded that was a hit at the majors that the promotional people picked I didn't think it would be a hit. I was wrong every time!

People must insist on the right to say no, to be alone, to stand out from the herd. Creative artists can say all this in their own way and in their own field, by hard, rigorous work.

People romanticize struggle and obscurity, and I get that, but it's a very one-dimensional argument to say that people who have money are evil, and artists who are poor are virtuous.

There was definitely a point in my thirties when I thought, 'Oh, wow, I'm not the youngest person on the set anymore.' But I like it. Working with younger artists is totally exciting.

The truth is that painting is all about scale; you use scale to create experience. A lot of artists have lost that ability. They don't even know that's something they should be doing.

With my childhood and growing up in a very free place where my parents were artists and always encouraging me to explore, you wouldn't think I was locked up in my own mind, but I was.

Maybe the way we have learned to look has changed in the last 25 years, and the exotic is much more acceptable. There are many artists now, younger artists, who work out of the exotic.

Every artist seems to me to have the job of bearing witness to the world we live in. To some extent I think of all of us as artists, because we have voices and we are each of us unique.

So it's a majorly important thing for young artists, as well as older artists like myself, to know that not only do we have the right to say no, but if we don't say no, we're gonna die.

Art fairs bring attention to up and coming artists and some amazing new works. They are a way to connect everyone with what's happening at the cutting edge of art, both new and historic.

I'm an artist. Artists don't need permission to work. Regardless of whether I'm acting or not, I write. I write when I'm tired in fact, because I believe your most pure thoughts surface.

When Photoshop came around, I thought I'd died and went to heaven. When I hear artists say, 'Oh, the good old days' or 'I'm old school,' I just want to puke. There's no tool I won't use.

I influenced the BG style by not being able to draw perspective. The BG artists developed cool graphic painting styles to make my bad backgrounds look like they were that way on purpose.

I've demanded respect for myself and my band and my peers, I've demanded full artistic control for my music, I advocate for artists and music education wherever I can. And I'm a nice guy.

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