I've been around the music business for a long time now, and I've had a lot of chances to do movies. But I didn't really want to do any until I found stuff that started to hit me in the right place.
After coming from a major label, I realized the entire business has been decimated, and you can't look to labels to try to figure it out because they don't even use the technology, and they're oblivious to how people consume music these days.
When I was 20, I thought anyone in the music business over 25 is past it. Then at 30, you think anyone still doing it at 35 is ridiculous. Suddenly, you find yourself at 48 and still doing it, so I don't know what to say, really.
To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I'm always, like, just in it. It's like, 'Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I'm so happy.'
I wanted to appeal to people who've never really listened to hip-hop or really given it a chance before. I've also tried to incorporate all my favorite lifestyle things in the music. Of course, 'Fashion Killa' is one of peoples' favorites because it ...
I would love to go into musicals. I got a chance to sing in 'Big Momma's House,' and that's something I would love to do more. But only in Broadway or in the movies. I don't think I would ever seek a career as a singer.
Starting in music, where I get a chance to connect with the lyrics of a song, I learned so much about performing on stage and connecting to your audience and to what you're singing about. Singing is very emotional. Every song has its own purpose.
With Sumthin Else Music Works, I wanted to spread the love and give newcomers a chance to make it because something that really helped me were all the people who had given me an opportunity when I was putting my career together.
In the old days, a TV sync was perceived as not so cool or whittling away at your indie cred. Now it's seen as much more of an opportunity than a sellout, as a way to find fans who wouldn't have ordinarily come across their genre of music.
I think something I've been drawn to about the people I work with is that they seem to be - like me - people who are a little insane, and have to make music. It's not a choice they're making for the sake of vanity - like it's cool to be in a band.
I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records, maybe you're meant to cater to another market.
I love people, and I love to be with people and to make music with people, but my natural state is to revert back to being by myself in my house, which is cool because that's where I practice and write and listen and study.
I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!
The first record I ever listened to was Elvis Presley, and I remember thinking, 'Man this guy is cool!' The swagger he had really helped my confidence, because he really made me think that a white boy could make music like this.
Australia is so cool that it's hard to even know where to start describing it. The beaches are beautiful; so is the weather. Not too crowded. Great food, great music, really nice people. It must be a lot like Los Angeles was many years ago.
Abjure all accretions and turn off the lights. Put on some music - Leonard Cohen, say, perhaps his 'Various Positions' - and let your mind cool down. Soon you'll forget there's a word called 'stress.'
It never mattered to me that people in school didn't think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it - though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was...
I'm passionately involved in life: I love its change, its color, its movement. To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings - it's all a miracle.
I always find music guys writing about love. Think of something else for a change. I'm sorry, but it's been done, and it does work and it's good and all that, but I think something else would be nice.
I mean, just because you're a musician doesn't mean all your ideas are about music. So every once in a while I get an idea about plumbing, I get an idea about city government, and they come the way they come.
I believe that music in itself heals and that everything is about the power of the mind. I thought if you are happy, you don't get ill. Your health is in your head. When you are satisfied with your work, you don't get ill.
