Composing's not voluntary, you know. There's no choice, you're not free. You're landed with an idea and you have responsibility to that idea.
The way you change and help music is by tryin' to invent new ways to play
Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.
If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.
A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.
It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.
When I first started working on movies as a production assistant, we were shooting 65, 75, 85 days. I mean, granted some of those things were "Godzilla," "Deep Impact," and those kinds of things, but these days it's like 30-35 days or 40-45 days and you just feel like you're humping trying to get everything done. It's like "Move on, move on, move on!" That's not the way to get the best performances or the most interesting shots. You have to constantly balance schedule and quality of work. For me, that's the biggest thing.
Island Records used what we built and tried to cash in on it which is so annoying. So it came time to do Carver City record and Island wanted to do it and we're just like "What's the point?" I mean, at that point they were even admitting like, "Yeah, we're just gonna do what we've always done. "
I believe in supporting African solutions to African problems.
I will never stop doing stand-up; that's my career, but I will do movies in Hollywood.