I was never attracted to the pop world. I listen to music that is pop sometimes. But I've never thought, 'Oh, I need to work with Ne-Yo now.' It's never really been my thing.
I do think it's probably true to a certain extent that you tend to sing music that fits your voice. If you're Lou Reed, you're unlikely to become a country singer.
I have a sort of tactility about music. I go into record stores and just run my fingers over it, the spines.
This quality, I mean Geoffrey was with me, was very easy doing - he loved me very much, I loved him very much, and we understood each other so well that it was a pleasure to make music.
With Geoffrey, it was the first time we did music together, we understood that everything could be well, and without any problem. And we didn't need to rehearse too much.
Every writer writes in different ways, and so some write the music first, while others write the lyrics first, and some write while they are doing other things, and it is just nice to see how other writers are writing.
Someone's career that I admire would have to be Justin Timberlake's because he started off on Disney and he made this huge film career and huge solo music career. I really respect him as an artist.
I rarely listen to music while writing. If I don't like it, it bothers me, and if I like it, it absorbs me so much I can't write.
Music for me is an emotional thing and it really does make me happy. It's not a tool for me to get fame or see my face in the papers or anything like that. It's about the fact that I really do enjoy it.
I've never really been schooled in music theory. I'm a guitar player, and I attack the guitar in a certain way that it not fully unique to me, but it's more unique that some other people.
Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.
Now the big question is if you are going to go to all the trouble of setting an opera and making all that music and so on, there's got to be some aspect that you can do in an opera that really makes it worth while.
I like to think that my works flow like music. That may be one reason I work in large groups versus one picture of one thing; it's the flow of the whole series that counts.
So when you enjoy the beats, the rock music - maybe even toned down with an orchestra - you are enjoying the spirit of the black race. And that's what I emphasize to the students.
I know that the nice shines I have on is going to pass. The nice cars will pass. All that will stay is the music and the work. That's where I get the inspiration to help people out and work.
You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process. You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.
I come from a place, with all due respect, who's never had a music star in hip-hop. So the odds is already against me.
I didn't have a philosophical understanding of music until I came to New York. I didn't understand how it applied to my kind and my generation. I thought it was just old people talking.
The majority of the high schools and the public schools in N.Y.C. don't even have band programs. Hip-hop in a lot of ways is an outgrowth of a lack of instruments and a desire to play music, so we can't really fault the kids for that.
My music is very innovative, in a class by itself. Nobody else is saying anything of value. What I'm trying to do is get people to think, to alter their consciousness. It's not your typical platinum formula for success.
I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
