I can't get excited by my own music. It's impossible.
Thus the slogan should be reversed: Catholics taught the world what music is supposed to sound like, and, more importantly, what it is supposed to mean.
Ladies and gentleman, I've suffered for my music, now it's your turn.
Salsa, classic rock, soul music, jazz... all of that was a part of my education in making hip-hop music.
The point is that I am such a big fan of Puccini and that Butterfly is the most difficult and complete role that you can imagine. Just to sing it with a good voice is not enough: it asks tears from your soul. I am very emotional on stage, and the music is so tender that I suffer for real when I am singing it. So I cannot do many performances.
The Soviet Union had only one party. You couldn't express yourself freely; you couldn't admit belief in God. And yet this terrible regime understood that human beings have to express themselves, through music, even at a bad level. All kids studied music automatically, just as they did maths or languages or sport.
In times of war, starvation, hunger and injustice, such tragedy can only be put aside if you allow yourself to be uplifted through music, film and dance.
I listen to music, I read scripts, and I know pretty intuitively if I can unlock it in a way. It's actually very liberating when you understand that not everything is for you.
I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.
Part of the reason that I moved to Los Angeles is that even though my mom introduced me to all kinds of music, I really wanted to work on having my own identify, on being who I am and doing what I do, and seeing how people responded.
I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a musical and he said to me that he was hoping that ABBA would be writing the music, which I thought was a pretty wild idea because they were obviously known very much as pop writers.
My core is grime. But I make all kinds of music. Take Picasso. He could paint whatever way he liked. He could do a little ting with a felt tip if he wanted to - it's still going to be a bad boy Picasso at the end.
My grandfather was a massive influence in my music. Growing up, he would play a lot of old-school records to me. A lot of jazz and swing music, actually, growing up.
When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland.
So the thing is to put out music for music's sake.
In the music industry, we value large success. I realized that while I would like that, that it's not what my writing is about. And if I start making it about that, it becomes impure.
I started taking music lessons and singing when I was about ten.
Stone walls confine a tinker; cold iron binds a witch; but a musician's music can never be fettered, for it lives first in her heart and mind.
African-American music tends to have, at the very least, a glimmer of hope to it - sometimes full-fledged hope.
I've made my own music, and the way I've always described it is Peggy Lee with an electric guitar, or Billie Holiday with some PJ Harvey in there.
I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny, but the more hurtin' the music was, the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself, but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life.
The first thing you learn about the music business is that it changes very quickly. You come into it at a certain point and you think you have a handle on it... And then, three years later, the whole thing has been turned upside-down.
Music is emotional, and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping.
Dre was one of my heros in the music industry. If he's not down for his homeboys, I don't wanna be a part of him or around him.
I was put on so many different musical stages growing up that I didn't think about what kind of music we played. I just thought music was music.
That's what my music... I'm working on a solo record right now, it's gonna be more hip-hop than anything, like electronic hip-hop, futuristic hip-hop. I'm probably gonna be rapping on it.
When I was in my early teens, I joined a cult. And we weren't allowed to listen to secular music or anything that wasn't made by us. So I spent a lot of time not listening to music, and by the time I could, I just didn't get into it.
There's more to life than listening to rock music.
I think records and music are more appropriate and more respectful of the human soul than the churches are. And more respectful of the needs of humans to communicate with the aspects of themselves that are neglected by language.
There's never any pressure on the music having to be something.
Ry Cooder for me is a master, a great master that has a wonderful feel for Cuban music. He's also paid tribute my talent a bit, even though I don't know half of what he knows.
In our house we repeated the pattern of thousands of other homes. There were a few books and a lot of music. Our food and our furniture were no different from our neighbors'.
I feel like, if I'm going to have young, impressionable people listening to my music, then I'm going to respect that.
I'm actually not an exhibitionist at all. When you get onstage and you get under the lights playing music, I feel more hidden and more alone than anywhere else. You hide behind your music and let your emotions come out through the music.
I actually spend very little time listening to any new music.
Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.
