Artist Quotes

When you're young and everything dramatic is exciting, you start to believe that hype that, in order to be an artist, you have to suffer. I've graduated from that school.

I became a recording artist before I knew it. And I just - when I would listen to my old records, I'd just hear this young, extremely nervous fella that that made me want to run out of the room, you know, rather than listen to what he had to say.

You can't stay in your home town and play because the two people will get tired of seeing you.

I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was, like other chicks want to be stewardesses. I read. I painted. I thought.

I was just 20 years old when I wrote Broken Arrow.

We used to want our artists to be cigarette-smoking bohemian outsiders who were gonna take risks that the rest of us wouldn't.

It's a tough pill to swallow, but if I was going to stand for something as an artist, and every time that had consequences I decided not to do it, that'd be pointless. I have to listen to people, and I always try to meet people with understanding.

If you truly believe that artists have a responsibility to uphold their liberal virtues by using their massive platforms, then those artists should be judged by the danger and inconvenience that they face for doing so, not by the rewards they receive for parroting consensus.

I got my diploma and then I thought I'd chance it as a freelance artist. I did it for a couple of months but then I thought, My God, I've done enough. The interest just wasn't there.

I'm only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

You don't hear no artists from Compton showing vulnerability.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you're making a mistake but let you go on with it, that's when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

Every true artist is at war with the world.

I feel close to Marvin Gaye, Vincent van Gogh, because nobody appreciated his work until he was dead. Now it's worth millions.

If we really are saying that rap is an art form, then we got to be more responsible for our lyrics. If you see everybody dying because of what you are saying, it don't matter that you didn't make them die. It just matters that you didn't save them.

Look, people are allowed their own opinions and they don't always coincide with yours. As an artist you just have to keep plugging on.

There comes a time as an artist, can't follow the crowd. You have to do YOU, and make the crowd follow you.

Songs should follow the state of mind of the actor on screen. It can be grammatically perfect, you know, with all those embellishments that the ustads are good at, only if you're singing for a film on, say, the life of Tansen.

I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don't really think that hard.