My nails are my rhythm section when I’m writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.

Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston, I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, ‚Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.‘

Without music, life would be a mistake.

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 like to read books. I like to listen to music.

There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.

A good song never gets old.

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.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

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

We don’t make music – it makes us.

‚Jolene‘ has been very popular all of these years, even overseas.

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.

In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can’t replace the magic of four people in a room playing.

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that’s stripped down.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

With pop music, the format dictates the form to a big degree. Just think of the pop single. It has endured as a form even in the download age because bands conform to a strict format, and work, often very productively, within the parameters.

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

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

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

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.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

Obviously, the cinematography of films is art, just as a still shot can be art. If I’m watching a Wes Anderson movie, the colour palettes alone, and the way they’re painted, could be art. With music, you’re a little bit limited, of course, because it’s only audio.

I think that, whatever happens, I’m just happy I’ve written those songs and I’ve made an album. That’s really big for me, and I’m proud of that.

I enjoy all forms of music – pop, classical and opera.

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

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

Writing ‚We Are Never Getting Back Together‘ was one of the most hilarious experiences I have ever had in the studio because it just happened so naturally.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

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

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.

I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.

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.

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.

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 just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

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

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

I listen to music that is of our time and I just get angry.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

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

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

I’m not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

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

I just hope people don’t get sick of us. I’m sick of us and I’m in Destiny’s Child.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

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.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

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.

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.

I’m no hillbilly singer.

The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.