Isaac Hayes Quotes

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.

When I was 13, I asked for a guitar. And that's how I really started explaining my point of view.

In high school, I had a wonderful teacher who, coincidentally also taught Meryl Streep before me. At the same time I had my own rock band, I played bass and sang. I was one of those kids who really enjoyed being with my friends and doing rather insane, but fun, creative things.

Through literacy you can begin to see the universe. Through music you can reach anybody. Between the two there is you, unstoppable.

If you can make people understand why freedom is so important through the arts, that would be a big help.

I realized after writing songs for years how important it is. Whether it provides a living for me or not, that creative outlet is something I need.

There's nothing like the joy of the arts, and promoting the arts early in children is going to give them such a start in life in a way.

If I weren't musical, then I would have just published a book, you know? But I'm lucky enough to play piano, and so I use piano to convert my poems.

Hip hop is a human skill, and the practice of real hip hop should remind us of our humanity.

It's always nice to be able to capture your life's experiences in a song and hold the emotion in that way.

Now, all writing - all the arts - are a form of 'Pay attention to me,' but there's also the flip side. Like, I want to give something. Let me entertain you, let me amuse you, let me try to please you with this thing I've made. And then pay attention to me.

I'm not a goddess, for crying out loud. I'm a regular person who took feminism - which I have a deep connection to - and mixed it with music, which I really love to do.

My mother sent me to speech classes, but the other kids still teased me. I was shy. I stooped. Instead of talking, I kept journals. That's where my love of words comes from. I majored in journalism.

More and more, I think about the role of the arts, and as an artist, I think that it's important that I share the love and peace.

I was very pleased to find that once I had records out music videos were starting to happen, so I directed some of my own music videos and got to experiment in other areas of expression.

It's a blessing as an artist to express myself - whether that be via dance, via song or via speech - in so many different ways.

Artists in each of the arts seek after and care for nothing but love.

For me, 'Rent' was all about coming out of myself, finding out who I was, learning the power I could have as a performer.

Music is just such... it's not therapy, but it's a release, it's a joy, it's a pleasure. And it's a job - which is weird, because I don't think of it as a job.

There's something about singing that I just love. It makes me feel freer than anything in the world.

Why is it that English, drama and music teachers are most often recalled as our mentors and inspirations? Maybe because artists are rarely members of the popular crowd.

Rock 'n' roll offered me a platform to speak what I felt. It also offered me a platform to support my mama and my brothers and sisters - twelve children.

I wanted to be that quirky girl who writes funny songs that still have meaning.

I love being in the studio. Expressing myself that way is really cool.

No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh, I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh, I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music, it's definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way, definitely.