Esperanza Spalding Quotes

Record labels and producers are not looking to change you: they are looking to make a star. And what they might think is a star may not be you.

The truth is an artist like me who doesn't get the type of promotion that we see more commercial artists receive, and especially in this climate of the music business, you have to be creative about how you promote yourself.

Generally what you see happen is these talented kids make a great album, but they don't have a chance unless they have someone working with them who has integrity. They get thrown out by MTV and radio in six weeks, and they don't get any time to grow.

If we'd had a Svengali manager and done what we would have been told, maybe we would have had a bigger, more hugely successful career.

I was so moved by music that I wanted to create it as well, but once you decide that's what you want to do with your life, to be successful, you have to be business-minded, too.

When no one's buying your records, it's easy to justify selling a song. But once you start selling records, you can't really justify having two songs in Cadillac commercials. It looks greedy. And it is greedy. This whole music thing should be about music.

My music and my fan base is really built off of my lifestyle.

When I was young, I was offered my first recording contract in 1971 and was offered quite a bit of money if I would change my character and be a '70s version of Cher.

So there was a way for you to get promoted and survive as an artist without worrying about AM radio hits.

To come out in the music business, you only really get one shot. A lot of people get to play small gigs first, and build up that way, without anyone really seeing them.

I'm in a very good place to make records. Needing to make money off music is very dangerous.

An artist don't make you bigger than life - being that person that can break artists can make you bigger than life.

What people are feeling is the similarity in what I do and how I'm capable of breaking a new artist into a competitive field. People can't wrap their head around the fact that Gaga did not do that on her own. She didn't. There was a Laurieann Gibson.

I've never worried about how a new release will be received. I simply try to do the best I can and leave the rest to the gods. The music industry in those terms is something I loathe and detest. It conjures up images of a gigantic factory spewing out parts of the machine.

You can do any number of things in the music business aside from trying to look like you're 25. To me it's embarrassing.

I would love to continue working behind the scenes in music - to produce and manage up-and-coming musical talent would be a dream!

I'm very new to the industry. I'm not on the Billboard 200 and that is alarming to me. But when I sat down with my management they said it's not a big deal and that it happens all the time.

The success of Watermark surprised me. I never thought of music as something commercial; it was something very personal to me.

It was hard to work and work and work and not get your music played on the radio.

Swimming upstream in the music business is a hard thing to do.

I'm gonna be honest. I don't care about much. I care about people liking my music. I made it very far without nothing being on radio.

Actually, we got signed in November of 2000 with Dreamworks which is the most amazing label. We have friends on other labels and though we are not selling millions of records, yet, they treat us with tons of respect and give us some very good guidance.

However, the radio and national media depend much more on the hype from a good record label, and from a ' buzz ' about a band, then from just one or two good shows. There are a lot of artists that have a ton of good press going for them, and still do not make it big in the US.

There's nothing remotely interesting to me about marketing music as a product.

I don't tweet very much. I still believe in the mystery of an artist. I believe in going out when I'm ready to sell my product. A lot of artists are out there every day. But I remember the Julio Iglesiases, the Jose Joses - and it was about the music.