To be given the opportunity to help shape new artists' careers and mentor them to see their dreams come to fruition is a task I welcome with open arms.
I don't want there to always be this stigma of the "female" artist. "Oh, what does it feel like to be a female doing something?" That hurts me.
I think the production thing was a stroke of luck really. But for me, I had to do it, as it was always part of the plan. But my biggest claim to fame was to recognize those who were at the time unrecognised. Soul II Soul was like a festival to all these artists who wanted to be a part of it. We travel to all these different destinations and everyone gets off where they need to.
The main joy I have in owning or being a part of my own label is the platform I've created to really push other artists and this other kind of musical muscle I get to exercise, it's not just me as a creator of music but me as a curator. That's been really exciting and I do get to have the autonomy and control and all those things with my releases, but now I get to go and find artists that I really love and like and share them with the world too.
I know the devil is working against me. I already know my mission and what I'm really here to do. People may not see it but he's been working overtime. He's not even able to mess with other artists because he's got so many demons around me.
I'm not an artist that has a big, huge radio record that's going to be on BET. I'm not, at this point, gunning for like, "Oh, I'm gonna kill them in the first week." But as people slowly discover the album they realize it's better than a lot of what they've been listening to all year.
I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist.
For me, the worst set is always when something happens to your equipment. Or back in the days your records wouldn't arrive and you couldn't perform in front of people. The best for me was performing for the Love Parade. That was kind of a blessing. I was never respected as an electronic artist. I was very big as a hip-hop DJ in my home town and in Germany. And then becoming an electronic artist, it was very hard for me to fight my way up. It still is, to be honest. I can still watch the Love Parade on YouTube, and I still put my hand over my head.
We definitely classify things in order to get closer to what we believe in - so it serves a purpose to really think about one style of music, and to understand the shades of delineation between similar artists. But yeah, it's really nice to listen to something the way most people listen to music! Just to enjoy it, without having to put it in context.
As someone who has been asked to ask David Lynch what his movies mean for 25 years, I'm very careful about asking artists what their art means.
All accidents and experiments, and discoveries, are what my work is about. The problem that I have as an artist is being way too critical.
Who would be an artist that was perfectly happy? Maybe nowadays, but when I grew up in the '60s, you had nobody in the art club who was popular. No cheerleaders in the art club. I was told that I couldn't be a painter by my first painting teacher. I said I wanted to go to Cooper and be an art student, and he said, "You'll be a waitress." It was really the strangely indifferent parenting.
Being bad. Discomfort with your body. Bad self image. All those things turn you into an artist. The same things that keep you from being in a proper marriage.
I think people who are artists, actors, singers, great songwriters, they tend to have a hyper state of emotion where they feel things very, very deeply, probably more deeply than the average person walking down the street where it may affect them, but not to the same extent.
When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.
The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.
Being an artist is not easy - I have always said that to the students I have taught over the years. It's a huge sacrifice.
Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one's work.
If you're a baker, making bread, you're a baker. If you make the best bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you bake the bread in the gallery, you're an artist. So the context makes the difference.
I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. That's different from prescribing a way in which a writer should write.
Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.
I embraced being a pop artist, but I like doing it on my own terms, at my own pace.
Target is one of the best at really listening to the artist and understanding what they are about.
In Italy the artist is a god. Now if the artist is a god, the scientist is likewise a god.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: