Sisqo
It isn't about being or not being a thug. It's about being real. I think that is how street respect is earned.Collection: Respect
As an artist, it's always good to have some sort of magic involved in what you're doing.
I'm a heterosexual male.
Fudgery Fudge was a minimum-wage job that we had in Baltimore before we got into the music industry, where you make this candy and sing songs simultaneously.
The kinds of things that business partners want you to do to promote your music - a lot of times, it takes precedence over the music itself.
On one hand, you want your peers to continue to respect you as an artist, you want people to buy the music, but you don't want to, quote/unquote, sell out. So I've been doing the best I can to walk that line of creativity and trying to sell the music.
Music is alive and as an artist and as a musician, you want to do the best you can to grow with music.
The music industry has changed so much.
I'm not afraid of nothing.
I've been shot at. I lived in the hardest 'hood and the best.
I don't care if tomorrow nobody likes me. I know my talent is real.
When it comes to my business, I'm a tough guy. If I don't like what I see, it's gonna change.
In the music industry you have to catch the right quarter. It's like double dutch.
A lot of the time people say my music is ahead of its time.
I thought that once you get success, your job was the 'Robin Hood' situation.
You know, I'm from Baltimore; nobody has anything. When somebody had talent, I was hiring my uncle, my cousin, you know? Getting people that I knew to run the studio.
I was doing the best I could to feed my family, bring the money back to Baltimore.
I know that several times before, I've bought football uniforms for my old high school.
I design all my own clothes with a guy named Jonathan Logan. He works with everyone from Marilyn Manson to Usher.
The Dragon is fully confident in anything he can do, fully believes that he's the best entertainer out there.
Man, I hate a mess.
I'm like a miniature version of the Rock.
A smash is a song that pretty much everybody likes.
I was that guy that, when the police would come, I would continue to wild out. I had no self-control.
We came out of high school into the music industry. And doing the best you can to break as an artist is a full time night and day kind of job so you gotta grow up really fast.
That's the thing with Dru Hill. We've always tried to be good musicians and not be pigeonholed into one type of music.
I've had international success so whenever you may not have seen me in America, I may have been in Dubai doing something. Technically I never really stopped doing music. I just did it in different places.
R.I.P Freddie Gray hopefully your death will not go in vain.
One of the most important things I did was to create my own sound.
We always believe that God would never put us in a situation that we can't handle.
Actually, there was a lot of tension, a lot of friction going on while we were together with Island.
Basically, we just stay on our knees, keep praying and stay humble.
In America, there are some artists who are more of an image than music; if your star status goes down there, you're finished.
That's why I try to stay away from the big-name producers, so I can prove that it's not about the producer, it's about the artist.
All of my break-out songs I wrote.
A lot of R&B artists have gotten away from being artists and are just chasing after the next hot producer and it all starts to sound the same.
I had written the hook for 'How Many Licks' for Lil Kim.
My videos, the ones I produced and co-directed and came up with a treatment from scratch - those are my babies.
I like what Childish Gambino is doing. That boy never ceases to amaze me.
I was doing the best I could to be a visionary. There were things I had done that people looked at sideways. Like, who is this black kid with blonde hair?
At the end of the day, the core of what I want is to make good music. But I think you can get to a level where the business interferes with the music.
I don't want to be predictable. I got a million rabbits in my hat.
Life is too short to hold a grudge.
My mother and father were middle-class, and my grandmother lived in the ghetto, so I used to spend my summers at her house.
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
I love Will, man. Every chance I get, I thank him. 'Wild Wild West' changed my life.
What happened was, we were in the middle of shooting the 'Wild Wild West' video, and Woody decided that he wanted to do his solo project.
The facts are, when anybody says anything about me selling out, you don't see me in mainstream because I didn't sell out. I'm one of the ones that went to the top of the mountain, got the jewels and brought it back to the hood.
Being a member of my group Dru Hill, we're basically known for soul things.
I can walk in the 'hood with my jewelry on. Everybody can't say they can do that.