Everything I do is me. I don't like taking ideas from people unless they're the G.O.A.T.
A Boogie wit da Hoodien
Why do you think my name is Artist? I'm an artist.
I overloaded myself with work. I give myself work to do so I don't give myself time to chill and have free time to chill with the family as much.
I want people to really recognize that this is what I am naturally good at: I'm really good at making music and describing your feelings vicariously through my experiences, through my past and my future. I want people to relate to me in multiple ways and be versatile in my music.
If you listen to me, it's real stories. It's catchy and something you can relate to.
Me and Thugger could make nine songs in a day and then choose which songs we like the most and think is gonna do something. With other people, it's like, we pick one song, and we hope it's the one.
I always looked up to people who did more than just rap or focus on music. I'm inspired by the people who put their different talents to use and turned it into something bigger.
Hip-hop originated from the Bronx specifically; that means everything. I'm down the block from where hip-hop was born and raised, so I'm glad I am here and I'm able to represent New York the way I am.
The album 'Hoodie SZN' is about the result of where I come from: it gave me this black heart. And the black heart represents depression.
I used to record songs, like, play the beat from one phone and have another phone recording me and just rap. Moving from that to a studio was like, 'Damn, I never knew I could sound like this.' It was just magic.
Most of the time, I'm making music. There'll be moments of my life where I feel like I gotta to take a break and come back to the music. It's hard to explain, but you need to get a break from it and then come back to it. It's like you gotta lose something to appreciate it.
I'm not the type of person who makes a lot of songs in a day just to see which one is the best.
I got so many people that have my number. It's crazy. I just don't feel like texting anybody back after I get, like, 30 text messages in three hours. I just be chilling.
I was inspired to shoot 'Look Back at It' in a high school because I'm like a voice of the youth. When the youth sees me in a classroom, I want them to be inspired to accomplish their dreams. I was just like them in a classroom at one point. It all starts in a classroom.
New York sounds like something that I could really listen to. It's like a vibe; it's a hit song. It's a song that you could listen to in five years and still like.
I never knew Artist was going to get this big. When I was making it, I put my all into it. But you never know what's going to happen with something you make.
I was trying to make my name just Artist in the beginning, but it was weird at first, because I wasn't an R&B singer or nothing. Not an R&B singer. I didn't do no melodic songs, none of that yet.
You always gonna feel me. That's my main thing. When I'm speaking in my music, you gotta feel me.
Highbridge - everybody rap in Highbridge; everyone grew up rappin' or playing basketball.
This is the most fun thing in the world to me, making music. Sitting down, I can make songs and not leave the booth, ever, and I love it.
I started off throwing out 'Artist.' I made that my first mixtape. Then, I threw out 'TBA,' which means 'To Be Announced.'
Growing up in Highbridge was real. Me and all my friends, we never really went to any other places in the Bronx but Highbridge. We always just stayed in Highbridge. It was like territory, to be honest, because Highbridge is like a town.
Even though I can't dance, that's, like, the one thing I wished I could do growing up. I used act like I was MJ, doing the moonwalk, tip toes, leg kick, all that.
I found my sound through exploring. I was in the studio yelling, going low, trying things, and that's how I found that I have a lot of sounds.
When I was 13, before I got in high school, I was writing mad raps. I didn't really know if it was good or not, so for a year, I just held them. When I got in high school, I started spittin' bars.
There are five great ages of man - five moments when you need to reevaluate everything, clear out the cupboard and the wardrobe, and most importantly, your head. They are 13, 20, 30, 40 and 60. All men need to know this.
Boredom is not a thing. It's not a feeling or a condition. It is the absence of feelings, things and conditions.
I generally only eat one meal a day, which is pretty unusual for a restaurant reviewer. It's not that I have a problem with food; I'll eat anything that doesn't involve a bet, a dare, or an initiation ceremony.
As handbags get ever more absurdly large, so they need to carry more stuff to validate the expense of this huge trunk with chains, buckles and padlocks on.
Bald isn't like being ethnic or disabled. Everyone can and will make jokes about it and expect you to laugh good-naturedly, which you will.
I don't remember ever stealing things, but I suppose I was endlessly borrowing money off people.
The French are never happy coming to London; this is an ancient and comforting enmity.
We have to thank the members of the Romantic movement for the sober colours of suits. It was their love of the Gothic that put us in grey and black but the suit stuck.
Every man imagines that he will turn his suit like a double agent, that it can be twisted to his will with irony or comedy, that the man can undermine its origins.
Being able to afford everything you desire is not, by any means, the worst thing that can happen to you. But, depressingly, and more profoundly, neither is it the best.
I'm terribly prone to anxiety. I get very depressed and I get very anxious and my anxiety is almost always about my children.
If you're bored, it's because someone else is fulfilling his dream. Become a bore. It's the most interesting thing you'll ever do.
It is impossible to be taken seriously in shorts. No one has ever cared about anything said by a man in shorts.
Learning Jimmy Carr riffs off by heart is not the way to anyone's heart, unless you're Jimmy Carr. And remember, the two most attractive things in a man is a sense of danger and being able to make a girl feel really safe.
And learn to tie a bow - it's not difficult and there's no excuse for either a clip-on or the hideous Hollywood straight tie.
When Americans come to London they usually say how much they love the history, the tradition, the splendid tumpty-tum of things whose very repetition has become their point.
You see, the problem with Dave Cameron is that people know who he is. The less people know about him, the more he's likely to get re-elected.
The pleasure in lovers' gifts is that they are often covert and secretive, worn next to the skin, hidden under pillows.
Texting isn't writing. It's not like letter writing. Texting is short scriptwriting. It's a collaborative soap opera where nothing happens.
The one thing politicians will always vote for is more politics, so in 2000 they invented the post of mayor of London without ever really thinking what it was a mayor would do.
Have you ever wondered why the rich and privileged care about, or even bother with, the gift bag? Because they don't need this stuff. If they wanted it, they could afford to buy it, without blinking. But they love the gift bag, beyond reason.
Gordon Brown is a character from a tragic opera, twisted by ambition and a Presbyterian sense of fateful destiny. He has waited 13 years, mostly in Tony Blair's shadow, for this poisoned chalice and has a pessimist's luck.
It's not in the nature of stoic Cincinnatians to boast, which is fortunate, really, for they have meager pickings to boast about.
Because there is no better tool for writing than experience. It has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with knowing.
Cowboy boots you can't wear unless you actually are a cowboy or in a Status Quo tribute band, or over 60; there's something about a retiring gent in cowboy boots that looks sort of presidential.