Songs live longer than kingdoms.
Poetry is composing, you are writing words to move the world like music.
Music is the melody whose text is the world.
It is not a dreamlike state, but the somehow insulated state, that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He’s aware of where he is and what he’s doing, but his mind is on the playing of the instrument with an internal sense of rightness.
The head-banging music gives me a headache. Katy Perry is fun, Rihanna, old-school ’90s hip-hop. Salt-N-Pepa. I like listening to that. Get the nerves out before the games.
Music is so huge to soccer, to my life, to working out. I usually have headphones when I’m cleaning the house or making dinner.
Ninety percent of the time, when I put on my headphones, I forget to turn on my music. Literally 10 minutes will go by before I realize that there’s no music.
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
That’s my actual payment, the fact that I can actually make something that I actually enjoy and put on repeat, and it’s not related to anything else or anyone else’s thoughts and ideas, it all came from me; I just love that aspect of it.
I always try to give my own albums space in between so I have time to create a new sound and give time for people to miss me. You have to come out fresh and reinvent yourself.
It’s always the music first for me. But if the music isn’t selling, there isn’t gonna be no business. So you gotta make sure music is always the first priority.
My ideas come when I least expect it, so I’ve always got to have a studio nearby or close by somewhere.
As long as you’re giving up quality records and you’re makin’ hit records, people are always gonna want to hear a hit, and they’ll always want to be attached to something that’s doin’ great.
I just like music all the way around the board. I can’t stick to one thing – I’ve got to move around.
My worst fear is my music won’t connect with the public.
My body doesn’t have any rhythm, you know. I’ve got quite good rhythm when I’m singing but my feet are very much two left feet.
I love hearing my audience breathe.
Sometimes with pop music, you have to see it to love it. With soul music, it’s sparse. There’s nothing that’s pretentious or planned. It’s just so gutsy.
I wanted to be a singer forever. But it’s not really my cup of tea. Having the whole world know who you are.
Sometimes my songs wander off a bit and are not always coherent.
