The craft, the writing of a song, is about creating a story, a life story, a world within three minutes, but that's the frame, if you like, the picture frame. That fascinates me.
If you want to be good at anything, you have to work hard at it. It doesn't just fall from the sky. I work every day at trying to improve my writing, and I really enjoy it. Nothing fascinates me more than putting words together, and seeing how a collection of words can produce quite a profound effect.
I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.
I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.
Some people, like Leonard Cohen, write one album every 10 years, and labor over a song for five years at a time.
If anything, I hope being an artist opens up more opportunities 'cause I feel there's a lot of things I could do, like musically and stylistic-wise that I can write, but I don't really have an avenue to show it 'cause most of the things I'm writing are in Hip Hop.
I have learnt through doing interviews throughout my life that the way that somebody can write about something can change entirely how it was meant, or what actually happened.
You go back and look at some of the ancient writings that exist throughout the world about wars and it's the same; the human beings' articulation of events is the same. That really fascinated me.
Like I have to pretend like I'm a male rapper, that I got stacks and we're in the club, and what do I want to say. And then, when writing Rare I could just be PJ.
When I'm writing for rappers it's kinda like switching, "Okay, you're not PJ. Now you have to act like a rapper."
Writing is something that I practice at every day to get better at.
I feel like when I'm writing for other people, when I'm doing rap hooks, it's kinda like playing dress up for me...
I just started writing and writing for people. And then, like I guess after (a) year of getting some placements, I kinda got a shot to be an artist. Long story short I think, yeah.
As far as in my adult life, it kinda started (with) writing first 'cause I went to school in Nashville. I mean, not Nashville but close to Nashville, and I met my managers in L.A. at a convention randomly. And then, it kinda just started from there. And then, I got my publishing deal.
I've always felt profoundly about what's going on in the world on a daily basis. What I hadn't felt was that I was at a point in my writing career where I could write about these things in songs and do it well.
Some things lend themselves well to songs, some things don't, and I'm learning that a lot at the moment. It's still a relatively new way of writing. It's only really the last five to 10 years that I've taken my writing seriously in this way, as something I can keep working toward. I think I feel myself much more before as simply a songwriter.
I do write a lot of prose. It's not disciplined enough yet that it's actually become stories, or short stories. The idea of writing a novel seems impossible.
I'm finding that writing poetry is strengthening my songwriting, because you're learning to make a piece of writing work on a page with nothing else. I was also finding within poetry I felt a lot more free to write about very different matters, to write about social issues or things that are going on around me.
I don't hold onto anything, because it's a waste of energy to do so, really. There's nothing that I can do about the way people want to write about me. I just try and concentrate on my work and do that as well as I can.
It varies, I don't think there is any one set way of writing songs or coming up with ideas, it comes in so many ways you know.
In the same way, I write some of my more difficult pieces when I'm at very happy stages in my life.
When I write - I always write on my own - I demo those songs on a four-track.
I don't think that much anymore in terms of 'write a record, record a record, tour a record,' because in my own mind, things have changed, in that I'm just an ongoing artist. I'm not quite sure what the next project needs to be until it presents himself, and then I know. I just follow dutifully while I'm being led.
I was like just writing and writing and then I kinda developed my sound. And then, my managers were like, "Okay, we're gonna try to get a deal." And then first it was Interscope, and then it was Atlantic. And then, I ended up signing with Atlantic, but it was like a long process, a really long... it was A LONG PROCESS. I feel like it took me two years to do it.
[I] try to do both because the writing for me, to be a new artist, the writing is gonna pay the bills.
