I was a super-duper Tupac fan, and I realized later, when I became a huge Nas fan and a huge Eminem fan, I was drawn to the storytellers. They all told stories in different ways, but they were all like the best storytellers.

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

All of my songs are autobiographical.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

I ain’t here to argue about his facial features. Or here to convert atheists into believers. I’m just trying to say the way school need teachers the way Kathie Lee needed Regis that’s the way yall need Jesus.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.

I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.

Making music is like shopping for me. Every song is like a new pair of shoes.

I really learned to sing in church, I think, really with emotion.

Sing me a new song; the world is transfigured; all the Heavens are rejoicing.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

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.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

I always say, you gotta play a dive bar like you play an arena, and you play an arena like you play a dive bar.

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let’s put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

‚Thursday‘ is a conceptual album. Whatever that situation was, I spent the whole album focusing on that situation.

Doo-wop is special music to me because it’s so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

A Khaled record is always the best.

The boys know they’re from Southeast Asia, and they have their food and their music and their friends, and they have a pride particular to them.

‚Doo-wop‘ is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.

I own a ’66 Jaguar. That’s the guitar I polish, and baby – I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

Instruments sound interesting, not because of their sound, but because of the relationship a player has with them. Instrumentalists build a rapport with their instruments, which is what you like and respond to.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

My whole family are hams. They’re storytellers and everyone outdoes the next one.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

The fame isn’t important to me. It’s a blessing to have. Having so many people that support me, that love me and listen to my music, is beautiful.

I never thought, in my lifetime, that you’d be able to watch movies, read books and listen to music from a phone, but I guess the technology of tomorrow is here today.

This is the thing about hip-hop music and where people get it most misconstrued: It’s all hip-hop. You can’t say that just what I do is hip-hop, because hip-hop is all energies. James Brown can get on the track and mumble all day. But guess what? You felt his soul on those records.

Streaming is a really big market for me. We’ve been doing great in the streaming market, so it’s not something I want to alienate at all. Streaming counts now. They’re treating artists the way we deserve to be treated.

I used to really love Fiend, but he stopped. He just stopped. Every time he had a project, every project – ‚There’s One In Every Family,‘ ‚Street Life‘ – I had to have them. And he just stopped. And that was disappointing, ‚cause that was my favorite rapper at one time.

I would love to get Rihanna on a Khaled song. That’s my friend, but every time I’m around her, I get shy.

The darkness, the loop of negative thoughts on repeat, clamours and interferes with the music I hear in my head.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.

You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.

Some artists just ruin their voices because they don’t know any better.

I do put a lot of God in my music, but not because I’m super religious. There are a lot of demons in my music, too. I acknowledge both.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Music is something no one can control.

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.

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

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

I’ve always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.

Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn’t a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn’t want to have some contrived composition.

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

Football is all about fans.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

Archimedes was my ideal. I admired the works of artists, but to my mind, they were only shadows and semblances. The inventor, I thought, gives to the world creations which are palpable, which live and work.

I’m not going to make a song just to make a song. The day that I make an album, it’s so that people really know what Bad Bunny’s about.

It’s been wonderful for me, and I feel so privileged to have fans that are that loyal.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

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.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.