Ryan Montgomery
I've never really been one to stop and smell the roses.Collection: Smell
When you finally find the courage to admit you have a problem, that's when you have some power over it. That's the first step. Otherwise you're just withering away, you're like a burning piece of paper getting smaller and smaller.Collection: Burning
I think everyone has spiritual encounters and feelings but I don't think everyone chooses to acknowledge them.Collection: Spiritual
Just take it a day at a time. If you think, "I'm never drinking again in my life," you're setting yourself up for failure. But if you just think, "I'm not drinking today," then get through that day and just stay consistent. Consistency is basically the root to everything; it's the root to all success. Consistency is key.Collection: Drinking
You can make your mind sharper, you can get sharper with time.Collection: Mind
The Lord givith and the Lord takith away. I was given a lot of signs from the universe and looking at it in retrospect made me feel like God was telling me I needed to follow my dream. My granny getting in that car accident and being at that hospital when I was going there to see my girl... that whole part of the story where I go to the show and come back to the hospital... and it was almost like as soon as I found out that my granny didn't make it as soon as I got back, I also found out that my son had just come out.Collection: Girl
It's not about going to church every week because you know there's a lot of people who go to church all of the time who aren't going to heaven. It's not even about that, it's not about kissing God's ass, it's about being aware.Collection: Kissing
I didn't set out like, "I'm gonna do this album, and I really want a #1 album." So it wasn't even on my mind like a goal to accomplish... but as soon as it sunk it that it was an accomplishment, I realized I gotta start acknowledging milestones [I've] accomplished because sometimes you get so caught up in the bigger picture that you gotta stop and notice the steps you take to get to the bigger picture.Collection: Accomplishment
Hip-hop culture itself has completely consumed everything involved in entertainment. When you think about basketball like the way those guys dress; I don't know if you notice but people care about how you dress these days.Collection: Basketball
When you're sober it's easier to stay in line with your train of thought. There's a lot more you're thinking about that you want to discuss, and there are a lot more memories that you're dealing with that you had pent up inside of you for so long because you had been drinking all of those years.Collection: Memories
Real dudes move in silence...like a mute drivin a new hybrid.Collection: Real
I was doing 100 pushups by 8 years old. My dad was the type like he'd have friends over and be like, "My son can do that, Ryan drop and give me 100 pushups!" and would have me do it for his friends. It was that type of household.Collection: Dad
I don't like things to feel forced. I just let it flow, if it's not flowing I just wait a bit in the studio or I go home.Collection: Home
I got caught cheating a bunch of times, well now I'm not drinking but you think just because I say, "Oh I'm not cheating on you" that that's good enough? No! It's about action and I think it's the same way with God. It's about action, it's about the way you live your life and how you carry yourself and that's what God sees. I think people should take a page out of that book when they make their decisions and do things... and I think that the world would be a better place.Collection: Cheating
Imagine Eminem writing a play with complex raps and syllables, and melodies flowing in and out. That's what it was like for me listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda, it was incredible. So it just goes to show that if you put your teaching style in a certain form, that will attract the attention of the people you are trying to teach.Collection: Rap
With it all independent I feel like we're doing it one person at a time turning people into believers one person at a time. Just that good old-fashioned grind, get out there, touch the people.Collection: Independent
When you have something on your mind that you really have coming out of your brain... just talking to the beat, it's pretty easy and it's a natural feeling and at this point in my career. That's what I'm going for, I just want things to be organic.Collection: Talking
If you're to the point where you're trying to overcome that means you're at the point where you've admitted that you have a problem, and that might be your strongest point in the addiction.Collection: Mean
Something that I can say, "I set out to do this, however many years ago, and now I did it." That's a new thing of mine too, is just speaking things into existence.Collection: Years
Hip-Hop itself, the culture, the way that it's going you could always see the effect that it has on basketball.Collection: Basketball
When I was born, my momma pussy had the new car smell.Collection: Rap
Manual Lynn? Find out what that is. He wrote every single word in the play, and then everyone just rapped their parts. Imagine if like, Eminem wrote a play, that's what it sounded like to me.Collection: Play
If you can think outside the box or you can think bigger than that, then that will keep you centered in this earth, in this planet. I think with me I always believed in God but after certain things happened to me that's when I knew without a doubt.Collection: Thinking
Some people never know that they happen, some people never know that they had a shot to know whatever it is their dream is because they were in the wrong mental spot. But if you believe in God, or you believe in some higher power, or something... because if you think about it, our brains are only meant to fathom what we see.Collection: Dream
I think it's helped me evolve all around, as an artist and as a person. I think we need something, need something to believe in. We need something that makes us pay attention to these humbling experiences.Collection: Believe
I'm not saying my teachers should have rapped my lessons or anything, but I feel if I had made more of a connection to them I would have gotten more out of school.Collection: Teacher
I feel like I'm at a point in my career where I'm looking for something else to sink my teeth into that's interesting to me, that I can do that I can feel like I'm turning another corner.Collection: Careers
I feel think the next logical step is acting, which I think is cool but I never got the acting bug. I never looked at a movie and thought "I wanna act," but after seeing that play I thought, "I wanna write a movie, and I wanna write a play." I will write a movie and I will write a play.Collection: Writing
"Tabernacle" was probably the easiest song I'd ever wrote because all I really had to do was rhyme the words since the whole story, front to back, was already in my head. All I needed to do was verbalize it, and if it didn't have to rhyme I could've just freestyled it because I already knew what I wanted to say.Collection: Song
My big brother used to come home drunk and he'd clash with my dad and I just didn't want that.Collection: Brother
I'd clash with my dad over other things, you know, like difference of opinion and me getting testosterone, you know what I'm saying? Me feeling like I'm a little tough, being a teenager. But my big brother would come in drunk and really, really try my dad and I didn't want to do that.Collection: Brother
The competitive nature definitely sticks out in my mind. Everybody out there is trying to win. Each individual is trying to put up more points. Each individual is trying to put each other on while playing in a team atmosphere.Collection: Team
I don't think I ever would have had a problem being vulnerable or introspective but the problem with drinking is it's very hard to zero in on one part. You're not dealing with anything in real time, you're constantly moving and constantly going. You're drinking to get away from things, things your dealing with. My wife might be calling me trying to argue and I don't wanna deal with it so I just go drink and by the time we talk again I'm so drunk I just don't care. I'll just deal with it however.Collection: Zero
My dad struggled with cocaine addiction, and we actually went to rehab with him too. I remember having extensive talks with him about how I was wired a certain way, how I wouldn't be able to drink and do drugs the same way my friends got to.Collection: Dad
It's just an inspiring journey in itself to stop drinking this late in my career after abusing alcohol and to have this kind of success so late when usually people give you like this window of success time.Collection: Drinking
I still wanted to get into the NBA. I was still on the team, I was a starting point guard and I was on and off the team because of my grades. That was the thing, discipline, discipline, discipline, and then I was going home to a very strict dad. He ran the house like the military.Collection: Dad
People also knew me for putting people up to hip-hop, so people knew I was heavy into hip-hop. But as for cyphers and stuff in high school, I would never get on it because I was too shy. That's pretty much what I was doing.Collection: School
I was probably just graduating high school, maybe still in high school. When I was still in high school, maybe the last two years, I was rapping but I wasn't telling anybody. When I signed my deal people didn't know it was the same Ryan Montgomery from Oak Park High School, because I used to play basketball and I used to fight. Like I'd bring boxing gloves to school. So when they found out, it was, "You mean Ryan who be boxing?" or, "Ryan who be hopping up at the park?" So I was known as that guy.Collection: Basketball
Forbes did a story on , when I seen it in Forbes I was just like, "This looks good!" and it felt good so I just went ahead and posted it. As soon as I posted it, people started calling and congratulating me and then it really started sinking in that it was a real accomplishment.Collection: Real
I feel bad for these preachers man, they're on their jets doing all of that stuff because there's a lot of people living hell on earth.Collection: Men