I had gotten to a place where I truly believed everything I was called: 'not sexy,' 'not funny,' 'too intense,' desperate.' All those labels they gave me, I took them because there wasn't a trace of my true self left.
Sometimes magnificent visual art takes root in the humblest of soils. Advertisements painted on old barns, tattoos, fruit crate labels, hot rod embellishments - all these media and many other non-galleried forms have hosted and fostered esthetic delights that satisfy any rigorous definition of art.
Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people.
It is hard, though, 'cos record labels love to boss you around. I won't let them do that anymore.
If anything, I'm the most hesitant to bring on a label. That terrifies me. I think people believe major labels are linked to success. They're absolutely not that.
So So Def has been one of the most successful and consistent labels in the game in the last 10 years.
My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am.
I mean Iggy and The Stooges first couple of albums I think sold twenty five thousand between the two of them you know and so to talk in terms of an underground I mean you have to go really to the independent labels and things like that.
I like picking up accessories as and when I see something I like - whether its from my travels on the streets of a foreign country or more mainstream labels like Accessorize.
It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression.
My style of singing has always been referred to 'soul' singing when it fact it's more influenced by English R&B Blues Shouting. I'm closer to Led Zeppelin as a vocalist than to Ella Fitzgerald. It was torture dealing with major labels.
I think labels have been used alot during this election process to divide people, and at this point in time we really need people to come together, and be their own person, come with their own suggestions, and really solve the problems that we have facing this country.
You see, party labels do not ensure unanimity any more than trying to cast the challenge we confront as a people through a partisan prism.
Actually, we got signed in November of 2000 with Dreamworks which is the most amazing label. We have friends on other labels and though we are not selling millions of records, yet, they treat us with tons of respect and give us some very good guidance.
I have had the good fortune to experience both the limelight and the traffic light as a musician. I did my first recording on my own and it was available at concerts. The second to seventh were released on small and then large labels. My eighth to 14th were done under my own steam once again, but with the benefit of the Internet.
The problem is that resuscitating old labels doesn't work anymore. I think it is very important to give hope to a new generation of designers, so that one day they really can put their own names out there.
I hate labels; the problem is that if you say you're one thing, it's hard for people to imagine you as something else. Music is way more complicated than that.
I think you've got to keep it simple, keep it fresh. Stay away from all that processed stuff, read the labels.
Leaving the record companies tweaked something inside me and I realised I don't have to deal with labels to make something happen. If I want to meet someone, I don't have to go through the label - I'll just go to them. I took my life in my hands and social media has just helped me do that more.
Georgians aren't interested in labels or affiliation, they're interested in solutions. And that begins by making Washington smaller and America bigger!
Formats are going to change because this is what the people want. It's not what the labels want.
I don't really care that much about genre labels. I tend to write across a variety of different genres.
I think part of what happens is that small labels want to get bigger. And bigger is not better.
I don't put labels on myself.
I know it is common nowadays for artists to start labels but this is a thoroughly constructed vehicle for inspired talent. This is a market that we've been living, breathing and eating for our entire lives - one where a huge void currently exists. Favored Nations is a long-term commitment.
I think ethnic and regional labels are insulting to writers and really put restrictions on them. People don't think your work is quite as universal.
Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior.
You don't just wake up one day and decide who you are. I hope that people see that it's okay not to have labels nor label anyone else. Step back. We're all just trying to figure it out.
For new bands, I think a major label is the safest place to be. Independent labels are the ones getting away with murder. A lot of them are hobbyists who rip-off young bands, taking advantage of people who would never get signed to a major.
It's a radical time for musicians, a really revolutionary time, and I believe revolutions like Napster are a lot more fun than cash, which by the way we don't have at major labels anyway, so we might as well get with it and get in the game.
I'm not - I'm not going to define people by labels: who's a real Republican, who's not a real Republican.
Open your refrigerator, your freezer, your kitchen cupboards, and look at the labels on your food. You'll find 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than the differences.
And so many of the kinds of labels you get stuck with don't really tell the story; Progressive, Art Rock, Noise Music, Downtown - it ends up being a struggle to stay out of debates that other people are having around you.
I'm always trying to slip out of those labels everyone tries to put round your neck. We all have multiple selves.
When people put labels on us, it doesn't always enclose everything that we are. So even though I'm proud to be Somali, I'm proud to be American, at the end of the day, I'm still Halima, and I take things from both sides and combine them, and I make my own little category. I'm me!
There is such an advantage to self-releasing. If you can do it yourself, it's the best way to go. In Europe and the rest of world outside the U.S., I have licensed my music to labels. But it's amazing because I still own all the masters. I didn't have to give up any of those rights. I have 100 percent creative control.
