My father's record collection was full of New Orleans music of all kinds. I used to listen to the radio in New York, and all there was on it at the time was Madonna and Michael Jackson, so it sort of passed me by.
My first engagement with any art was music.
I'm associated with gospel music in the minds of millions of people.
Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
There's rises and falls and ups and downs in all music.
It was nice to focus on things outside of my body. Music has always done that for me.
Normally when I read, I don't like music playing.
I'm not really interested in music. Music is just a means of creating a magical state.
I don't dismiss the music that I was involved with, I don't think it was a joke, I don't think it was funny or a phase, I don't think it was just something I was doing back then, to me it was who I am. It connects all the way through. I don't distance myself from any of it.
We all have such common ways to identify with each other, and I think when you approach music in that organic way, it's almost indescribable how it connects human to human and heart to heart.
That's always been a dream for me, to be able to collaborate and make music with the people that inspired you to make music.
That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that.
Yes, there are times when I get extremely depressed and how I sublimate those feelings is through music.
I play music the way it was played in yesteryear.
I love music, I love all kinds of music, particularly jazz. Jazz is an extension of America. There's no other country in the world that could have produced jazz.
You should play with real musicians; the best music comes from real people interacting with each other.
I really don't have any shelf music.
The fact is that we take music very seriously.
The labels are in a jam. For a company to do well in music now, it's got to be in all aspects of the business. And Live Nation is the risk-taker. It's leading the charge.
I remember being a little kid sitting in the living room with my brother and some friends from around the neighborhood, and I would sit at the piano and as they were running around the room doing different things and being silly, acting out, I would actually play the score for it - the music that went along with it.
In New Orleans, bounce music was prevalent. That was all they wanted to hear. It was new and trendy, and it was hot, and it was taking off. Artists were coming out of everywhere. They did some great songs, some really catchy, fun songs. That was just the feel of New Orleans music.
Register is very important. Music sounds best in a certain register.
I submitted videos and applications to talent agencies and TV shows; I drove to Vegas and visited agents. I was on 'America's Got Talent'; I played for free at venues in attempts to be 'found' and yet all the experts in the entertainment industry told me that what I did was not marketable and that I had to join a group or do more traditional music.
I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.
I'm in a car so much on tour that I often just ask my friends to DJ and ask them what they like. That's the best way I discover music.
There is a lot of pressure on pop stars, and I think a lot of it is the pressure that we put on ourselves. In our minds, we build up these huge, huge standards that we think people want from us, and actually, when you break it down, people just want you to make music and perform to the best of your ability, but anxiety can stop you from doing that.
I learned how music works dealing with Jermaine Dupri, and I learned how image works dealing with Puff Daddy.
But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the children into useful labor. We're not valuing a child for the time in which she actually is a child.
We just make music. For I never stop working.
I feel super, super grateful that I get to make music.
The '60s weren't my cup of tea. I never bought that philosophy that, you know, we're all brothers and that'll solve everything. And I never believed that music dictated the times. I always thought it reflected them.
When that music comes on, I just block everything around me out.
Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.
I really want it to have an impact on the world. I want to be in a town on the other side of the world, and somebody walks up and says, 'That music you made in Glasgow, I listened to it every day, and it moved me.'
If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process.
I want to write my own music, and I want to tour.
