Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You know, my goal, once I leave the music business, is like, 'Man, Lupe didn't lead us astray.' It comes directly from Islam: leading people astray is the worst thing you could do. Especially in perpetuity; like, your music continues to go on and live without you. That risk is too great for me; I'm gonna keep it positive.
With my quick success, I didn't have time to learn the ropes of the music business. Because my first record was such a hit, I was terribly spoiled and I thought I couldn't do anything wrong. I was also desperate to make tons of money because of my responsibility to my daughter. And there was no longer any joy in making music.
For the music business, social networking is brilliant. Just when you think it's doom and gloom and you have to spend millions of pounds on marketing and this and that, you have this amazing thing now called fan power. The whole world is linked through a laptop. It's amazing. And it's free. I love it. It's absolutely brilliant.
I found that so many people in the music business started out as metalheads in the Eighties - whether they're songwriters, producers, engineers or executives, and no matter what they look like, with short hair, suits or whatever. I feel like my generation of metal kids really tends to populate the music world to a large extent.
My first album was mainly dealing with street issues, and it was 'coded': it was called 'Reasonable Doubt.' So the things I was talking about... I was talking about in slang, and it was something that people in the music business was not really privy to. They didn't understand totally what I was saying or what I was talking about.
I dabbled a little bit in the whole music thing but I've always thought about Bernie Taupin, who is Elton John's lyricist; Elton John is the great melody and song writer but Bernie Taupin is the one who writes all the lyrics. I don't write lyrics, and I never wanted to be in the music business if I was just going to be a puppet in it.
Since the traditional recorded-music business models have drastically changed, there is truly diminished income derived from recorded music by artists - both current and catalog. The touring industry has become much more important as a majority revenue stream and the ancillary fan experiences and promotions that may be derived from it.
From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business, I couldn't see that.
But I sent letters to people in the music business. And one day I got a phone call from somebody and he asked me when I was born and where I was born. And, you know, three or four days later I got a call. Someone said, you know, Yoko Ono wanted to meet me in New York. I got on a plane. And the next day I was having coffee with John Lennon.
When you first start out in the music business and hope that you have a couple hits, the ultimate payoff is to be standing in front of all those people who are singing it back to you at the top of their lungs. And you know by the way they're singing it back that it's affected their life in some way. That's the ultimate reward as an artist for me.