When I first started making music, I was all about wordplay and how fast I could rap, but over the years, I've really gained an appreciation for melody. What's cool is that when you're singing, you have to be concise, and when you're rapping, you have the opportunity to be really detailed with your lyrics.
The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.
Generation after generation, there is this never-ending, contemptuous, condescending attitude to the next generation or the next way of thinking: music, art, politics, whatever. And I have never been like that.
We've been conditioned to understand music as a field where you get discovered, and you're always trying to find that end. So 'my shot' is speaking of a variety of shots. When you're a rapper, you look at every shot as the one you're supposed to take.
The world is changing, and the way we consume music is obviously changing. I was one of the biggest CD advocates you will find, but when Apple music and digital options came out, like for everyone else, it was more conducive to my lifestyle.
The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
I love conducting. What I'm tired of is music administration. I don't want that. I just want to make music.
You can't expect someone born into a family with no music... to understand when I'm conducting the Schoenberg Variations.
In my mid-twenties, I was with a conducting career, but I had never been to university and I wanted to. There were things I wanted to study in depth. I also wanted to see if I could survive without music.
If you ever go to a music session, you'll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they're reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.
Let me say that I've never thought to conduct because the conductor has to think to the music before the orchestra. And the orchestra comes later. For me, it's terrible.
Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it.
Drummers are conductors - we set the pace for the music - so if you're not relaxed and feeling right, the whole thing goes out the window.
They gave me four weeks, and I asked if the first week could be just music with the two main conductors. So, the conductors came over to my home, and we worked in the music room, and I learned my two little songs.
I look at composers and conductors, anybody involved in music or writing or art in general; they got more done as they got older. If I can, I'll be one of those people because what I do is my passion.
Music as a social conduit has always been important to me.
I started singing backgrounds for Mary Mary and Usher during 'Confessions.' Then I jumped to working with Anthony Hamilton, Jill Scott; jumped again to Kanye West, The Killers. I kept saying, 'OK, this is the last time; then I get to do my music.'
I like writing and don't confine myself to just the words or just the music. But I don't particularly write songs with myself in mind.
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.
