To have so many years in the rap industry and so many number one songs, and sold so many millions of records, introduced the world to people like Cool & Dre, DJ Khaled, Pitbull, Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, Remy Ma, Big Pun, Rico Love... I could go on and on. Having been able to influence the rap game for so long is very important to me.
We've written something like 900 songs in all.
I can tell jokes. I can talk to the audience. I can relax. I can change my songs whenever I want. I can change the tempos. I can change the mood, because I'm in charge.
I happen to love the patriotic songs of America.
I can understand why guys wouldn't be into 'Glee.' You know, that's a pretty heavy musical show. That show does, like, six songs in an episode.
I have a lot of songs, and I'd love to do some more recording with the band.
Greatest hits is easy because one has nothing to do - except that we both, Roger and I, felt that new songs should be there because I've been away for awhile.
If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or, perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.
My songs form a kind of biography or diary of my life as they are about people I have loved and people I only knew in my heart, places I have seen only for a moment and places I have lived all my life.
Basically I write songs, and I need for there to be a home for these songs.
With this new album, I prepared for it a long time, and I was happy with the songs and the production. I felt that I proved myself with the first album, and with this new album, I just want to share some of my music. And that was always my feeling and my intention.
The divergence of songs in the new population away from those in the progenitor population would only be prevented if these processes were balanced by repeated immigration and subsequent breeding: song flow.
It can get a little costly if you try and leave it until then to write songs. But you're writing all the time. You're collecting songs. I've had songs that have been collected over a two-year period for my next record.
When I started trying to produce records for other people, one of the first tracks I wrote and produced was sort of a 'Kelly Clarkson circa 2008,' kind of big-brassy, guitar-pop, rock song. I was like, 'I can do this. I can make pop songs.' It was bad.
My songs always speak of love, that's the way I like them.
To me, there's two types of songs, good and bad. And I just like to stick with the good ones.
Heartbreak can definitely give you a deeper sensibility for writing songs. I drew on a lot of heartbreak when I was writing my first album, I didn't mean to but I just did.
The songs become the show, which is how it should be.
I'm not just a voice who wants to sing on anything. I co-produce, I want to select who comes in and plays on what songs, who to duet with and all of it.
It's fun having songs about parties and gigolos, but I really wanted to use my music as a form of art. Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think, and I wanted to do that with this song.
But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there.
The kids of today have taken over the music business - most of them very young. Simply because they write and jot down a few notes, they have the idea that they can write songs.
I just know that I love to write songs, and I have for a long time.
Unfortunately, most of the songs that I write I don't write them with guitar in mind. I just write it as a song and that was probably one of the ones that left an opening for it. The song's all right, I wouldn't choose to sing it now.
One of my favorite songs from the album is a song called 'For Better or Worse,' and it's basically about unconditional love, which is, I'd say, an ongoing theme in my personal life.
I achieved something specially different with Love To Love You Baby and I Feel Love. These songs will endure.
I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwriting. You sang songs, that's all. You sang other people's songs. That's all there were.
I didn't write songs for a very long time.
T Bone is genius. The way they've recorded my voice and the instrumentation to these songs is really quite extraordinary.
I always thought that I was a terrible writer. And I started to write songs. And I started to like what I was writing. I think it's a new way for me to express things that are closer to myself than when I play a role because, of course, it's really not me.
I just write songs from the heart, and you never know who'll like the songs. I try to make sure that I don't allow anybody's expectation to weigh on me. I have my own expectation of life. I believe in letting people be free.
I was just learning to play guitar when Tracy Chapman came out. She wrote these songs, she played them by herself and I so admired her for that.
I don't really need to stand out, there's room for everyone. Although I haven't built a niche yet, I'm just writing love songs.
I really, really like writing songs.
The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some level.
Your creativity before it gets formed into words and songs is the actual substance. No one else can see it, right? Unless you give it the shape of a song or a painting or whatever.
