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.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

I was always singing but didn’t plan on pursuing it seriously. 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 think ‚Hail to the Chief‘ has a nice ring to it.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

All of my music is honest.

The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

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

I would say that jazz is my own language.

I always say I wanna work with Alicia Keys. I’m in awe of her.

We uploaded ‚Ocean Eyes‘ to SoundCloud, and it started getting a lot of plays pretty much immediately.

I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It’s still got the same strings on it.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

I was ready to quit music. It felt to me like music equalled death.

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.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

People like music when they’re in love, but they don’t need it as much. You need music when you’re missing someone or you’re pining for someone or you’re forgetting someone or you’re trying to process what just happened.

The whole slacker generation totally didn’t apply to us musically.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‚Marathon‘ or ‚All Money‘ or ‚Crenshaw‘ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.

The vibe on ‚Starboy‘ comes from that hip-hop culture of braggadocio, from Wu-Tang and 50 Cent, the kind of music I listened to as a kid.

Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.

There are certain sounds that I’ve found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.

I never listen to ‚Nevermind.‘ I haven’t listened to it since we put it out. That says something.

But, I’ve always loved John Mayer and I think T-Pain is brilliant.

When my record comes on, you know that’s a DJ Khaled record. That’s my formula, and the people love it.

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing – no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn’t happen that much anymore.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.

I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.

As for my stuff, I’m just doing guest verses for other people’s records. I try to stay recording, because if I don’t, I get rusty.

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

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

One of my most popular songs, ‚Satellites,‘ I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.

I don’t think I’d ever make an album of just covers because I love writing my own music.

In a long meter hymn, a singer – they call it ‚lays out a line.‘ And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can’t wedge a pin between it.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

There’s been people who’ve rapped and produced – like Kanye – but I don’t feel like on the rapping side there’s ever been a producer who can rap as good as I think I can rap.

Obviously this song is an achievement for me in my career, but what makes me really feel good is to make Latinos feel proud. To provoke that pride that a pop figure and someone so big in music globally like Drake would sing with me completely in Spanish and create this hit ‚MIA.‘ That’s the best part of it.

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

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

I love movement. I love moshing.

I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

It’s a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That’s where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. They’re my biggest heroes. I love everything about Leonard Cohen: his lyrics and his voice. He seems like a really clever man, and Bob Dylan does as well. He’s just really cool.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

Everyone I look up to is bringing me into the tech world. You’d be surprised by all the music people in it, invested in it.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don’t get me.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.