I couldn't live without my music, man. Or me mum.

Music is the same to me as it was to Goethe - a pleasant noise. I am an eye man, not an ear man.

For me, music is about expressing the inexpressible, and as I get older, man, what I feel the need to express becomes less and less poignant to others.

To me, the noise of a threshing machine is better music than a lot of music I hear nowadays. I took a man's place in the threshing crew when I was only 14 years old.

People might get mad at my style or my delivery and say it's not country. But the country music that brought me to Nashville? Man, I will always have that on a pedestal.

Music leaves such a big impression. I always wondered, 'Man, if I grew up in Nashville, would I be making Country records now?' I honestly feel like Chicago had such a big impact on me.

It doesn't bother me when someone is totally unaware of anything I've ever been in or done and says, 'Hey, man, I really like your music. I've never heard of you.' That doesn't bother me at all.

I think when people listen to music, they can truly feel authenticity. For me personally, as a listener, there's certain songs where I'm just like, 'Man, I know that person was really feeling that.'

I'm a man of different types of flavors and tastes. I like listening to things that inspire me. Older music, when instruments were being played, not just people hitting buttons. It's manlier. You're touching things to make sounds appear.

Music is an expression of who you are, and - at least in that sense - I think I epitomize Black Lives Matter. I'm a big black man, and I'm easily misunderstood. Before I started wearing these African clothes, people would assume that I was a threat and that it was O.K. to be violent toward me.

Man, Dr. Dre just inspired me so much. Just him personally, outside of music, too. You know, him doing the whole Beats thing... People like him, they set the bar high for me to set the bar even higher, you know? It's more than just music when it comes to building a foundation and building your empire.

When you say, 'Man, what kind of music does Outkast make?' You be like, 'They make Outkast music.' What kind of music does N.E.R.D. make? They make N.E.R.D. music. I want to be one of those people, because there's so many layers to the music I create that I don't want people to expect me to do one thing.

I certainly know that on our first tour of America in 1968, David Crosby came to see us backstage at the Fillmore East in New York, and I was very pleased to meet him from Buffalo Springfield and that kind of stuff. He didn't ask me anything about the music, but he said, 'Where'd you get your clothes, man?'

I went to college on a classical piano scholarship. My grandmother made me practice one full hour a day. Every day. Man. I thought all she wanted was for me not to have any fun. Next thing you know, you have a career in music. Now, not everybody's going to go on and be Mozart or Michael Jackson. But music makes you smarter.

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