Sometimes when I see a bad performance and people still clap… I wonder if they’re clapping because they liked what they saw or because they’re happy it’s over?
I believe in myself like a five-year-old believes in himself. They say look at me, look at me! Then they do a flip in the backyard. It won’t even be that amazing, but everyone will be clapping for them.
My greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.
Shoot for the stars, so if you fall you land on a cloud.
I just needed time alone with my own thoughtsGot treasures in my mind but couldn’t open up my own vault
I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.
Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It’s so much going on in music right now and somebody has to make a difference.
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.
I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‘one size fits all’ standard for happiness.
I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they’re looting, if you see a white family it says they’re looking for food.
If you see a black family, it’s looting, but if it’s a white family they are looking for food.
I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.
Keep your nose out the sky, keep your heart to god, and keep your face to the raising sun.
I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.
You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.
I thank Marc Jacobs so much for giving me the opportunity to design a shoe for Louis Vuitton, but the thing that broke my heart most was when they said, ‘You’re finished. The shoe’s finished.’
Black people can be the most conservative, the most discriminating. Especially among ourselves. It wasn’t white people who said all black men have to wear baggy jeans.