I don't feel like that many musicians are competitive with each other.
I don't get to listen to music for fun very often; a lot of what I'm hearing is for work and isn't released yet.
J. Ivy is a brilliant man with an incredible voice and a way with words. I've known him for over a decade and owe my stage name to him believing in me back then before I even had a record deal. I'm excited for him to share his truth with the world.
I want to move people, stir something within them that makes them feel. That's what a movie should do and an actor should do, make you feel something. I think that's why people love films so much.
In the 1970s, for all the Stevie Wonders, I'm sure there were five artists that were making forgettable music.
At the end of the day, there's only a few major stars in the music business, and then there's all these people that are aspiring to be that.
Kind of the critical acclaim of this movie [La La Land] is that it's striking a chord with the public in a way that has been really beautiful and powerful.
We want to do things that are interesting, great storytelling, some of it is gonna be more fun and funny, some of it is more serious and talking about interesting issues that we think are provocative and interesting to us. Kind of on a more political level. But, you know, just things that we find interesting that we think stories that need to be told.
For me there's insecurity when you're releasing an album because you spend all of this time working on that one thing and then once it's done, it's done. After you put it out there to the public you never know which songs are going to work or even if the album is going to work as a whole so there is a little bit of nervousness around predicting what the numbers will be and if it's going to be well-received.
I don't love the idea of three superstars coming together to form a dream team, I'd rather teams are built more organically, just as a fan it's more interesting to see.
It's important for us to fight for certain changes that need to happen. And one of those issues that I really care about is education. But also another one is incarceration.
I've written good love songs when I have been in love and I've written good love songs when I haven't.
I don't really marinate in anybody's album because I don't really want to sound like anybody else when I put my album out. So I'd rather not even be tempted to listen to a bunch of other stuff with any degree of emersion in it, cause I just don't want to sound like anything else, so I kinda focus on my own music.
Sometimes success is just limited to festival circuit.
If you want the film [La La Land ] to represent all things jazz, it does not. You'll be disappointed by that. But, if you just see it as one guy's point of view, one filmmaker's point of view, and one story among many stories that can be told about jazz, then it's not as much of an issue.
Music business is hard. It's very difficult. And it's not for everyone. Even if you can sing or even if you can write a song, it takes a lot of determination, it takes some kind of thick skin.
You believe in equality for women and men. And that means that, not only do you believe in it kind of in the abstract but you actively think people should seek it when it comes to the way you hire people, the way you compensate people, the way you treat women and men in professional settings and school, whatever the case, giving them equal opportunities without disadvantaging them because of their, for the fact that they're women. And to me that's what it means for me to be a feminist. I don't think it's that controversial.
Some of them [family names] have sentimental value for some reason or another, some of them just sound beautiful. Some of them are because of people that are meaningful to us in our lives. So it's hard to say which one we'll pick. Sometimes they say you have to see the child before you decide. So maybe when we see her we'll make a last-second decision.
Women are dealing with the same thing: they're dealing with expectations about how they're supposed to look and how they're supposed to interact with men. I think we're all trying to figure it all out, especially when we're teenagers, but I think the key is to listen and empathize with one another.
I'm not going to run for office. I don't think that's the right move for me.
I respect people who are willing to deal with everything that comes with being a politician, but I'm not willing to deal with half the country rooting for you to fail. I'm a singer; I deal with enough. But at least half the country's not trying to destroy me.
I was the front man of the choir and then when I was 12 and I was the leadsinger of my highschool groups.
I was in an a cappella group in school, so it particularly helped me keep my piano chops up.
I hear melodies and hooks all day. I've always been that way, since I was a kid.
I have a great band, with very talented players, and we give everything we have every night.
