All my momma’s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.

I like Cardi B!

My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.

My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father’s head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don’t know why-the lyrics had no meaning.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

That’s the most terrible thing about being an author – standing there at your mother’s funeral, but you don’t switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said – one of the famous lady novelists – ‚unhappy is the family that contains an author‘?

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

I was arrested for lip-syncing karaoke.

All the learnin‘ my father paid for was a bit o‘ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

My career as Nipsey Hussle is based on my life as Ermias Asghedom.

I performed in a bowling alley before while people were still bowling. Cut the check, and I will perform anywhere.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‚Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.‘

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

I feel only my friends and family need to know what is happening in my personal life.

It’s easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.

I used to think that, given enough goodwill, anybody would be able to ‚get‘ any music, no matter how distant the culture from which it came. And then I heard Chinese opera.

The way I try to represent my family and coaches, I think all are characteristics the league aspires to portray. That’s just who I am.

Being the only man in the household with my mom definitely helped me grow up fast.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

The only big things I’ve purchased are my dad’s heart valve and a Rolls-Royce for my parents, for their anniversary. And that was only because my dad had a Lady Gaga license plate on our old car and it was making me crazy because he was getting followed everywhere, so I bought him a new car.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

I’ve dreamed about doing music since I was three or four years old.

All the awards in the world, you can get into all the nightclubs, they’ll send you the nicest clothes. Nothing better than walking into your dad’s restaurant and seeing a smile on his face and knowing that your mom and dad and your sister are real proud of you.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

All that the future holds in store for each sacred child of God will be shaped by his or her parents, family, friends, and teachers. Thus, our faith now becomes part of our posterity’s faith later.

When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.

After momma gave birth to 12 of us kids, we put her up on a pedestal. It was mostly to keep Daddy away from her.

I realized the power of hip-hop. I realized how influential this music and this culture are.

A good song never gets old.

Sometimes you can’t prioritise family and you feel guilty.

Every band I’ve worked with also wants to be countercultural in the sense that they want to feel that they’ve gone somewhere that nobody else has been.

I love the Sex Pistols. I’m a big Beach Boys fan and a huge Zeppelin and Queen fan.

I always wanted a family.

My biggest competitor was my mum. I used to try to beat her at Chinese chequers, chess, carrom, volleyball, badminton, football, wrestling.

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.

Making your dad happy is – especially for an Italian Catholic girl, I’ll tell you – it feels really good.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.

My upbringing was solid because of the people I had around me.

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

But, you know, you can’t be a star at home.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story.

I was very worried about my mother, growing up – a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.