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.
A Boogie wit da Hoodien
Because I came out as a singer, I took the time to get an acting coach.
Aaliyah
Anyone who's got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some '50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That's it, really - I'm not a musician, I'm not a singer.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson
People saw me as just a singer - yeah, a pretty face who could sing - and not more than that.
Aaron Tveit
I was already in a band, and the teachers called my mum in and said: 'Abbey's so clever, it's a total waste if she follows her dream'. But I never wanted to do a job I didn't love, and I'd always wanted to be a model or an actress or a singer.
Abbey Clancy
Originally, I wanted a pop career and formed a girl-band 'Genie Queen' managed by Andy McClusky from 'Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark', but it didn't work out. My brother John is the talented singer and song-writer with 'The Razz,' while my other brother Sean is a footballer for Telford United.
I'd always wanted to be an actress or a model or a singer.
I'm a rock and roll singer.
Adam Ant
But, in North Korea, it's just the opposite. There's one story. It's written by the Kim regime. And 23 million people are conscripted to be secondary characters. There, as a youth, your aptitude towards certain jobs is measured, and the rest of your life is dictated, whether you'll be a fisherman or a farmer or an opera singer.
Adam Johnson
I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.
Adam Lambert
I wanted the focus to be on my ability as a singer and as an entertainer - not on my private life.
The only reason I became the singer in the band is because I sang the best. It wasn't out of some desire to be a star or be a famous singer. It's not like I love interviews.
Adam Levine
I felt like people only knew me as a singer who dated pretty girls.
I'm not comfortable as a lead singer. Maybe I could do it in the studio, but I wouldn't have the confidence to play shows.
Adam Schlesinger
I never said that I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid. I didn't know. I thought I was going to be a singer and musician. That's what I had been doing, for a huge part of my life.
Adan Canto
I wanted to be a singer forever. But it's not really my cup of tea. Having the whole world know who you are.
Adele
If I were a writer and not a singer in 10 years, I don't know how I'd feel about writing really personal songs and getting someone else to sing them.
I am not a trained singer, but when I was offered to sing for 'LPNY,' I took it up as a challenge.
Aditi Rao Hydari
Music does not have colour or religion. If I listen to a song, I don't care about the colour, religion, or country of the singer. It doesn't matter, even if it is in another language, because I love the music.
Adnan Sami
I am a singer; my job is to create music and harmony. Wherever I see harmony, I would go towards there.
I am a singer. You love me or hate me based on my music. If you are judging me based on my nationality and religion, you are a racist. This is very offensive. I cannot encourage that.
Apart from being a playback singer for films, I'm also an independent musician.
When I was 15 I became a full-time singer in a band. At 18 I made my first record.
I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.
I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.
It's kind of like OK, I want to be a singer. And I felt if I would have stayed with the 'Osbournes' and done the whole Osbourne thing... I would have been typecasted right away before I had a chance to experience other things.
My mother enjoyed acting as well with my father, who used to direct her in plays at his regiment. My sister is an excellent singer. However, it was only me who decided to pursue acting as a career.
These songs are old friends I have entertained myself with when I'm washing the dishes, driving to the store and walking down the aisles. The ones that you sing when you're driving in the car and as a singer you always go back to them.
I came along with that crowd of singer-songwriters who were able to make their own statements in such a personal way that it changed the industry: Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Sly and the Family Stone.
I was singing doo-wop on the corner under the streetlight with four other guys when it wasn't called doo-wop. We just got together and sang, so that music is inside of me. It's a lot of stuff that has been rolling around in here and becoming this compost and has made me who I am as a singer.
Every good gospel singer you can hear is a scat singer; they're just using different syllables. There are a lot of jazz singers out there, and more coming out of the churches.
Since the beginning of my recording career in 1975, I have had a little difficulty because the pop stations think I'm a jazzer who doesn't have a feeling for pop, so it's hard to get my records played. Similarly, black urban radio doesn't understand that with my R&B roots, I am more than a jazz singer. So I get pigeonholed.
I was really learning my craft as a jazz singer and working with some great players and all, really growing and feeling my wings.
I am inspired by all kinds of players and singers.
I'm an R&B and pop singer as well as a jazzer.
I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing.
There's room in the world for one historical folk-rock singer to make a decent living, and I happen to be it.
I traveled the world as a DJ, as a singer, as a songwriter, as a producer.
If you're a singer, you do concerts, and you get that interaction with fans and see what cities in what part of the world come out to see you. When you're on television, you're removed from that.
And the thing that I always tried to do with important singers when I met them was to sit down and record everything they knew, give them a first real run-through of their art.
Nobody's ever gonna accuse me of being a singer, but I can sing.
A singer can quit once he or she has made ten great songs; a director can finish once he or she has made five amazing films; a writer just needs to write three great books.
My mom was a professional. My dad and mom met each other in a movie called 'New Faces of 1937.' My mom went under the name Thelma Leeds, and she did a few movies, and she was really a great singer, and when she married my dad and started to have a family, she sang at parties.
Bel canto is my passion, and I really consider myself a bel canto singer.
If people say to me, 'So, what were you doing in Dubai in that song?' or they spend ages comparing me to some other singer, I just shut down, I guess.
Everyone in my family is an artist. Both my parents are painters and my mom's an opera singer. I was never shown any other way to process life.
Maybe I'm not a typical pop star, but I don't think there's a mould for a pop star or singer. You can do whatever you want.
I'm a fan of real singers. I just gravitate towards that.
I'm not a fitness model; I'm just a singer. If people focus on that, that's what I care about.
It took me a while to really believe in myself or feel determined about it, but then once I realized that it's possible for anyone, and these people who are singers started off very normal... I realized that it was not that hard to do.
