Music was a way of rebelling against the whole rah-rah high school thing.
Records are just moments of achievement. They're like receipts for work done. Time goes on and people keep playing music.
I think all of our concerts, really, as parties. It's a performance for sure. It's not a recital. It's a celebration of that music.
If you have a recital to do, you have to memorize the songs. I never use music when I do recitals. It produces an instant barrier, both for yourself and the audience.
I believed in fictional characters as if they were a part of real life. Poetry was important, too. My parents had memorized poems from their days attending school in New York City and loved reciting them. We all enjoyed listening to these poems and to music as well.
It's a big theme throughout my music to just embrace everything about your own mind and to always feel powerful. It's not just a feminine thing, but for men, too, whether they feel weak, or strong or crazy or reclusive. I want everyone to feel powerful no matter what little beasts they have in their head.
The first musical thing I remember someone recommending to me is probably Ludacris - the one where he has massive arms in the music video. 'Get Back.' It was recommended to me by my cousin, who's now my manager.
In this age when people expect to get their music for free, we have to work out how we can protect the rights of creative artists so they are compensated fairly and that the record business itself remains sound and healthy.
The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.'
When you win a Grammy... you're thinking about you winning. It is amazing. Your peers and folks in the record business are saying, 'This is what we think of you.' And that's why the Grammy will always be, to me, the ultimate in what you get as far as a music trophy, because it is the one.
My mother and father are very involved with music. It's completely part of their soul. They have an incredible record collection, all vinyl, of some of the best artists, in my eyes, that you can come across.
My father's record collection was full of New Orleans music of all kinds. I used to listen to the radio in New York, and all there was on it at the time was Madonna and Michael Jackson, so it sort of passed me by.
Absolutely, I grew up listening to soul music. People like Stevie, Aretha, Ray Charles, Michael and Prince. My parents' record collection was all I had when I was a little kid. If it wasn't that, it was something else in their collection.
My parents' record collection was the music I was hearing as long as I can remember, and I would play Otis Redding over and over again.
My dad had a great record collection, which included some music from Mexico, and so I always loved it.
I think it's important to remember that music supervision is not just about a fantastic record collection or knowledge of music, although that certainly helps for aspiring music supervisors.
Listening to all these different musical genres from all over the world and listening to my father's record collection, the Irish folk influences from home. Of course they're all in there somewhere hiding within the lyrics and melodies. But rap music was the biggest influence on my way of writing and my performing.
I think, back in the day, when I was first starting to make music, all I wanted to do was to get a record deal.
When I first came to New York I was a dancer, and a French record label offered me a recording contract and I had to go to Paris to do it. So I went there and that's how I really got into the music business. But I didn't like what I was doing when I got there, so I left, and I never did a record there.
I've had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, 'Your music sucks, you don't know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don't know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'
