Music is a job, but I figured out ways to get my mind into a place where I could be creative. I actually discovered meditation. It enabled me to clear my mind of all the drama and focus on the music.
I've got Arabic music in my blood.
It's about giving the people what they want. So many people have told me that they've made love to my records so what I've delivered this time is an album about sex. Pretty much every song has that theme. Straight no chasers, it's booty music!
Music is the universal language of mankind.
I suppose because I have a good ear, I could pick out harmonies and learn by ear. I still think that you have to have an ear for music to really be able to feel and understand what you're playing. You can learn by watching and listening to other people.
I grew up watching American films, listening to American music, and it's a big contribution to the rest of the world. I mean, American jazz, for me, is the best thing culturally that America has produced.
Quite a few musicians came to our house. And my ma took me to hear many more, hoping to encourage in me a love of music. But she wouldn't consent to my having music lessons, for she feared I might end up as she had done - unable to play except from paper.
When I'm on tour, I'm in a new city every single night, and the energy and the crowds and the kids and the screaming and them knowing every single word of my music and being onstage is such an energetic feeling with a big payoff.
People come to music to seek oblivion: is that not also a form of deception?
This isn't about the money. This is just for me. I love music.
We should be happy. We should be enjoying that there is all this bounty. Somebody can take an iPod and have all the world's music at their beck and call in an instant. What an amazing thing!
I make music with no boundaries.
I don't feel like I'm writing music for gay people. I'm a gay man who is writing music about one tiny little experience of what it's like to be a human on this planet.
'Can't Stop the Music' has become a cult film. It's kind of shocking to me. People come up to me all the time and say, 'I just saw it!'
The most flattering thing I hear is, 'I didn't think I liked country music before I heard your record.'
My whole thing is not just to play music for people, but to make them part of the evening.
Reggae, oh man. It's the ultimate music. The positivity. The musicality. The whole cultural expressionism of it. The danceability. Just the cool factor. The melody factor. Some of it comes from a religious place. If there were a competition of who makes the best religious music, it would definitely be the Rastafarian reggae.
One night I'll be in Los Angeles and it'll be a Latin crowd, and then another night I'll go to Fresno and it'll be an all-black crowd. To me, that's the beauty of the music.
If you really want to be a music producer, stop watching 'Friends' when you get home from school. Start trying to make music. If you're not going to try, then it's impossible. When you try, it's always possible.
If you can make the family life and the music work together that's wonderful. If you can make it work.
Music is a performance and needs the audience.
I like rock music because it's always sonically fascinating. There's never a method to what it needs to sound like. It's just however that instrument comes out that day, whatever the humidity level was in the air, what studio you were at. All that makes that tone that you can't re-create, so each song is like a person.
I love hip hop music, I make hip hop music.
I like myself still kind of being... because DJs used to be the background guy - the guy who was just doing the music - I see myself more as that guy than being on the stage.
I like Fisher Price music, nursery rhymes, and the alphabet song.
There's no way I can compete with someone who can write rap or rock and roll. Nor do I wish to. But I've always kept up to date with music changes. I worked very hard not to type myself.
You have to open your mind. I like the ability to express myself in a deep way. It's the closest music to our humanity - it's like a folk music that rises up out of a culture.
I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.
Touring with King Crimson wasn't a lot of fun for me. I had a lot of equipment, and when I was in improvised music I'd set it up myself, play the gig, and put it all away again.
Music can be transformative, utterly transformative. The act of music is utterly transformative.
Country music's so about the nuclear family and living the southern lifestyle and everything.
Music is my No. 1 passion. If you made me choose between music and food, it's definitely music.
My God, how can anyone ever be a master of music?
At first, I found the music I was making really hard to find a home for. I felt like my attitude was really British, but not the actual sounds I was making. Back in 2003, when I made 'Galang,' there were no clubs that had an 'anything and everything' attitude.
Songs say what our emotions can't. I love that about music.
I am passionate about finding undiscovered and talented artists. I want to help those artists get to the next level and provide existing artists with a new way to reach fans. I wanted to partner with the Cutting Edge Group because they share my vision and have a proven track record in innovation in the music business.
