A halfway decent haircut will go a long way!
I read the Steve Jobs book, and that kind of changed everything. I've been, like, an Apple geek my whole life and have always seen him as a hero. But reading the book, and learning about how he built the company, and maintaining that corporate culture and all that, I think that influenced me a lot.
Time is a finite resource that you can't get back. I have the same 24 hours you have, and you get the same 24 hours as me. As you rise, so does you chance for opportunity.
Sometimes you wake up the next morning after making a lot of bad decisions and have this nonchalant reaction like, 'These Things Happen' - what can I say?
Word of mouth is the most valuable form of marketing, but you can't buy it. You can only deliver it. And you have to really deliver.
I stick with a '60s vintage aesthetic of letterman's jackets, plain T-shirts, and good jeans.
Just wearing all black comes from Johnny Cash. I'm on the road so much that if I wear all black, my clothes never get dirty. You can't tell if I've worn the same shirt twice.
I'm just doing the only thing I know how to do. There was never a plan B.
I've always been an outsider to some extent.
Keeping in touch with the people that matter is important.
When I was 12 or 13, the hyphy movement was beginning to bubble. And you had local acts such as the Federation or E-40, Mac Dre, and Too Short that the local radio station would play all the time. You'd hear E-40 as much as you'd hear Jay Z.
You have to be dope; you have to find an audience and reach that audience with your identity and your message.
I was making all my own beats, and I really liked sampling stuff, like old '50s and '60s pop and soul and doo-wop records. I was chopping those up and putting loops and drums on them and just rapping over them.
Something I stand for is being brave enough to invest in creative ideas that I firmly believe in and bringing those to life.
I would never consider myself a role model in the wide sense of the word.
I just hear a beat and start mumbling words. I just hear sounds and rhythms, and it just kind of comes intuitively. Formatting a song, figuring out a flow, how I respond to the beat.
Touring is starting to feel more like home than home does.
I've got some growing up to do.
I've dreamed of being on the road, traveling and touring, for as long as I've been into doing music. It's what I live for. I just wanna be Willie Nelson.
Music is only special when it's coming from a genuine place - it's just energy trapped in a bottle.
