Music has an intrinsic meaning, which has always been mysterious to me.

My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

Basically, I live to do gigs.

Honestly, I’d love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I’m doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I’m doing.

Everyone my age probably grew up listening to the ‚perreos‘ of Plan B.

I hate the idea of genres.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

I’ve always tended to write songs prolifically.

Here’s what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play.

Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You’re glad someone’s done it but you don’t necessarily want to listen to it.

From the beginning of my rap career, since I was seen and heard, I always had a store.

I can dance to just about anything.

I met India Arie, who is one of my favorite artists of all time. It was really sweet; I was broken up with a month before, and she stayed up texting me all night and was helping me through it. Her text message looks like a song of hers. She’s sort of become my fairy godmother.

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.

I want more of my favorite artists or more of the guy that makes the anthems. I want more.

All Montreal bands have around nine members, I believe.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

It is one thing to record an album but it’s a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.

I really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever.

Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.

Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

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.

It’s nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn’t think of.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

I’ve got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn’t want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. ‚Discreet Music‘ was like that, and ‚Music for Airports.‘ What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out.

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

I’ve made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I’ve made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I’m proud of what I’ve done. In fact it’s been a good ride.

I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin.

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.

If I was just a fan of music, I would think that I was the number one artist in the world.

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.

You listen to the radio and all the songs sound the same, from 8 in the morning to 12.

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited – that has music and rhythm and time.

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.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

You know, there are artists who are 35 and up that still make rap and that still works for them. I don’t know if I want to be that guy.

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.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

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

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

My favorite artists always documented emotion. Marvin Gaye and Al Green and Sade and Aaliyah.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don’t really think that hard.

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.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

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.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.

If you ever see young artists, and they’re not sounding good, they sound good. They’re good singers. They wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t sound good. It’s their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist, and he’s or she’s screwing up or not hitting those notes, it’s not because she can’t hit it or she can’t sing; he or she is scared.

Doing music to pay bills is an uncomfortable situation. I never wanted to be in that situation.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

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

For me, great music doesn’t just have to fall into one category or one genre and I love appreciating all kinds of music.

Anybody that doesn’t like Cardi B a hater!

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

Today, I’d like to talk to Bob Marley. I’d just like to ask him what was his method. Bob is one of the greatest songwriters ever. I don’t know if people understand how powerful his songs are and the simplicity and genius behind them, from ‚Redemption Song‘ to ‚Is This Love?‘ and ‚I Shot the Sheriff.‘

I went to see ‚Phantom of the Opera‘ with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music… Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time – the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.

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

I consider myself to have one of the greatest voices in the industry.