The visual is everywhere in the streets, but in the industry, it's like you have to show up at this party and you can't take on the world in one day. It's a gradual process, but you can't let it frustrate you; you just have to keep grinding.
I'll step in an airport just now, and people will recognize me. I'm in Harlem on 144th and whatever, and people are coming up to me like, "What's up, Chamillionaire?" And seeing it grow is, nothing turning into something, that feeling is a really good feeling.
If I asked you something about basketball and you don't really know about basketball and you try to talk it and fake it, I'm going to be able to tell. It's the same way about music; you have to be real.
So much leather inside my car my horn moos.
I don't think people are going to come down to Texas and see every person riding in a candy car or every person sipping syrup. But, for the most part, people got a lot of the stuff right, talking about the screwed music scene.
I feel like people, when it comes to music, whatever genre, they relate to the story more than just the song.
Dumb nerd, scratch everything you already done heard I could go platinum if my album wasn't more than one word.
I kind of grew up and started maturing.
It would be crazy for me to come out now talking about selling drugs and doing all this stuff I never did for the sake of A&R or records or trying to keep the street buzz or whatever.
I'm in a wonderful position now because the rise of the whole Houston scene, the scene that we've been doing for years that people really didn't embrace a long time ago and now they're embracing it. It's good to be in the middle of that during the uprising.
I'm trying to go to places where people wouldn't normally, to try to get some new fans.
When you grow up and you start having all these problems and your little sister gets pregnant, you're dealing with all these money problems and bills and the company, you ain't going to want to talk about that. Or maybe you will, but me personally, I just can't do that.
All the carbon copies, the stuff that the industry puts together, it's not selling if you pay attention and look at the charts. The stuff that they put together, these hits that just go out, it doesn't sell. It doesn't have a core fan base of fans that dedicatedly watch their life. It's just a song, another song, another hit song, a one-hit wonder. It doesn't sell. It doesn't last.
The streets and the industry are two different things. You could be one super-hot artist in the streets, and you could walk into a corporate building, and people would be like, "Who are you?"
If nobody wants to buy your album, who's going to buy your clothes?
You have to have a balance, and I think that people get upset about Hip-Hop and say that it's dead because there is no balance. It's just all this simple-minded music, and it doesn't seem to be any content, and the dance club music outnumbers the little content there is.
I go out in the streets, and I go to shows, and I see my fans turn from "I like your last rap" to "I feel your movement; you're keeping it all the way real." One thing I've always said is that's never been my story, and I'm not going to go back on my word.
Most people hear me do all these freestyles and never hear me tell a story.
I couldn't make every song about Texas because it wouldn't be new; it wouldn't be a breath of fresh air.
There are certain fans who want me to rap about the same exact thing, but it's time to grow up.
It just gets old when you hear a million raps about how many ways I could shoot you.
I just try to be more creative and come with something new because I actually care about the music.
I try to keep the music fresh in my head. And I don't always listen to rap; I listen to a little bit of everything: R&B, rock.
