I see my career as not just music, but as hopefully an entertainer on all mediums, and someone who can have real influence and make great art.
I appreciate Drake's music, I appreciate Future's music, I appreciate Lil Durk's music. I appreciate Uzi, Meek Mill, I appreciate Migos.
I think the '60s was a great time for music, especially for rock and roll. It was the era of The Beatles, of The Stones, and then later on The Who and Zeppelin. But at one point in the '70s, it just kind of became... mellow.
A lot of times, people will have after-parties or try and host an event for comedians, and they misunderstand us. They think it should be wild and crazy, or loud music, and comedians are typically pretty mellow people that just want to talk to each other.
My favorite music isn't necessarily the songs that One Direction come out with. That doesn't mean to say I don't secretly really love some of our songs, which I do. My personal tastes... I actually like quite a bit acoustic and more mellow kinds of things.
I want to be the most melodic artist. 'His music ability, the way he write, his creativity is undeniable.' I want people to say that about me.
The type of music I make, it's not just straight-up rapping. There's emotion in it. That's why people feel each song differently. I get all my vibes from rock music, you know? All my melodies and all that.
People live their lives through melodies. If you can't sing, then music is worthless.
Music is the melody whose text is the world.
I can't say that I'm always writing in my head but I do spend a lot of time in my head writing or coming up with ideas. And what I do usually is write the music and melody and then, you know, maybe the basic idea. But when I feel that I don't have a song or just say, God, please give me another song. And I just am quiet and it happens.
It's a melting pot, southern Africa. You find these cultural collisions that result in art and music, and it's pretty amazing.
Growing up with country, R&B, gospel, and classical music from my grandmother and pop, Tuskegee was the perfect melting pot for my influences as a writer.
I was always making memes, and now I have music.
This is the beauty of popular music, that it is based on simple and memorable tunes.
I'd do entire music videos in my bedroom, where I used to stand in front of my television memorizing the moves to Michael Jackson's 'Beat It.'
I've always been in love with that Delta-flavored music... the music that came from Mississippi and Memphis and, especially, New Orleans. When I was 14, I was in a wanna-be New Orleans band in Toronto.
The fourth album encapsulated some remarkable music that was really groundbreaking. We were able to have something like 'When the Levee Breaks,' which, sonically, was very menacing. But then you had the flip side: something like 'Going to California,' which is really intimate.
For me, music is my art and what I have dedicated my life to. For fashion designers, clothing is art. Just as much as a piece of music that I might write is a piece of art. Being able to merge the two industries on stage or at an event is really fun.
Before every show, I would call my mother and say, 'Mummy, I don't know how I will sing today.' But that would change as soon as I went on stage and would merge with my music. She is my best ally, and I don't want to lose her. Nobody other than her would be concerned if I had eaten or had oiled my hair. She is my queen.
Rock music is being systematically merged with fashion.
