I’ve always loved black culture; I don’t know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone. I’m older – I’m in my early 50s – so you’ll have to excuse me. That was always very exciting to me to connect to the culture on that level.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

I always wanted to operate at the highest altitude, just in terms of hip-hop and the music.

I just love working with Eminem. He’s just one of my favorite rappers, and his lyrics – he’s a true poet, and I enjoy that about him.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

I love Chris Brown. He’s a superstar. He’s one of the best singers out there.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

It is wonderful to have someone praise you, to be desired.

My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on. And when it does, they turn up the volume – and turn it back down when it’s over.

I’m a big fan of songs like Joe Cocker’s ‚You Are So Beautiful‘ and Eric Clapton’s ‚Wonderful Tonight‘ – songs that go straight to the point.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

For some reason, I’m really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

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

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

I play piano every day. I enjoy that.

I guess you could say I devoted myself so strongly to my music that for awhile I forgot about my family. But I only get one set of parents, and I think I forgot about that for a little while.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can’t really explain – let’s just say it’s all I can really do while I’m doing it.

Open Graph is a language for structuring content and sharing that goes on in other apps, and we’re continuing to build it out longer term. But we found we need to build more specific experiences around categories like music or movies. Where we’ve taken the time to build those specific experiences, stuff has gone quite well.

When I’m writing, I’m thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don’t translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.

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.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

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 think if I did something in the pop world right now, it would be for Rihanna. I’d love to do something production wise for her.

In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.

At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin‘ words.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

I sang a lot of low stuff on songs like ‚Secrets‘ and ‚Rockin‘,‘ almost like Toni Braxton. On ‚Secrets,‘ I’m a different person.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

My music is a luxury.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

You listen to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane before they found their voice, they sounded different. And when you listen to them after they found their voice on their instruments, they sound more confident and in control. Artists have that, too.

The basis of our partnership strategy and our partnership approach: We build the social technology. They provide the music.

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

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

I don’t intend to stop making music.

Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

It doesn’t bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs – because at least they’re looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.

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.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

For all the supporters of Tesla over the years, and it’s been several years now and there have been some very tough times, I’d just like to say thank you very much. I deeply appreciate the support, particularly through the darkest times.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

Music has to be sort of ignorable sometimes.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

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

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘