I was 10 years old when I first heard Ginuwine. I remember being at a friend's house, and the music video came on. I was just like, 'What is that?' I was just kind of drawn from there.
Playing music is a lifetime's work. And if you want to carry on with it, you have to try to better yourself. You have to see where the music can take you.
On Nov. 5, 2012, my friend Elliott Carter died in New York at the age of 103. For me, he was and remains one of the most interesting figures of music history in the past century.
I'm a keen musician. Me and my mates have a great times jamming and recording stuff. We have a great band behind us and have turned my nursery-rhyme songs into quite credible pieces of music.
I write a lot of rhymes, but I don't really end up using them a lot of times, and I end up just freestyling. I like to write music, though, more than I like to freestyle, to be honest.
Most youngsters are so well-connected with the rock music circle that they will know instantly if I attempt to imitate any rock star.
There's a lot of music in my life, and I found it a very important part of my life.
I come from a long line of people who express themselves through the dance. I come from a long line of people who create music through their feet.
Some writers like to work in other places like coffee shops, but I can't - I'd end up people-watching. And if I were at a bookstore, I'd be reading. Sometimes I have some music on, but usually I like it quiet.
I not only composed music for my albums but also for the film 'Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh.'
Music is my balance... center of my life.
If everyone in the music business were brutally honest about what their intentions were then you could sort things out, but it's all smoke and mirrors.
I've dedicated more than 15 years to this theater and television thing; I want to spend the next 10, 15 years or so devoted to music.
I was only listening to rock music, burning joss sticks in my bedroom, wanting only to be a disc jockey, and watching six hours of television a night - the worst kind of teenage alienation.
I like and I love everything that has to do with cinema: writing, directing, editing, creating music, and even acting.
It's always interesting to me that we all hear music differently. It's an awesome experience to hear what other people hear.
That's the great thing about music. You can find some '60s pop record and feel completely invigorated by it, even though it's so old.
I'm a big fan of electronic dance music.
When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music... Now, record companies are run by lawyers and accountants.
I guess, in a way, I grew up mixed race: half white, half black. That question's always been on my mind: 'What are you? Are you this or that? Are you a white dude or are you a black dude?' In a strange way, music and comedy is kind of the same thing. I'm both. They're just different modes of expression.
I love music.
Good jazz has been a big part of my life as far as my interest in music, and... It's kind of weird now with music, the way technology is, with downloading and iPods and electronic distribution, and its kind of - you miss something, I think.
Sour Patch, Swedish Fish. I love candy, man. I can't go without candy. And when I'm recording, I always have a TV on with cartoons - on mute, though. When I'm recording, I like to look at the TV now and then and see some crazy, wacky stuff. When you're thinking creative, it just keeps you creative. Everybody got their way of making music.
I was raised in a very humble environment, and I was always taught to be humble to the things that are happening in my life because they're blessings. They're blessings in every way. Whether you're able to help someone get through a tough time in their life through your music or through comedy, or whatever it is, you're just a channel.
You're now getting a new breed of people like Il Divo and Andrea Bocelli and I think that's why people feel less intimidated by classical music than they once did.
It's insane that people have these Internet identities. It has very little to do with who we really are. As a writer, who I'm friends with, how I spend my time, what I look like, what I wear, what I eat, what kind of music I like - it's totally not important to the work.
I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I have a classical music background.
I moved out to L.A. when I was 17, dropped out of high school, and pursued a career in music.
I think that there was a fad where everyone said, 'I want you to create a signature step for my artist.' The thing is, for me, music creates the step. The artist commands the step, you know?
As a young person, I was on the road playing music, so I was getting new environments shoved in my face whether I wanted them or not.
I learned music from a book on piano theory. I was only interested in knowing about chords. From that, and from the 'Harvard Dictionary of Music,' I learned everything I wanted to know.
Every child should have time for arts, music, sports, drama, robotics, school newspapers and the like, not to mention recess and play.
My earliest memories of rap music was mixed with my earliest memories of reggae music. They were big sounds around the way, heavy bass lines, strong messages, definitely.
Soul music is about longevity and reaching and touching people on a human level - and that's never going to get lost.
I really just dabble in music; I really just did a few albums for my fans.
I always looked up to great actors and great films. A lot of my family would be like, 'Come on, you should get into these plays that are going on.' I'm like, 'Nah, nah, music's my thing.' I just fell into it. I moved to Atlanta, got with an agency out there, started doing little voiceover commercials, and it started getting kind of fun.
