Kendrick Lamar Quotes

I just feel if you are an artist, you always have something to prove, if you are in music or in films, you have to prove that you can still do your best.

My only problem is that I'm too sensitive about my movies. I feel each of them has to work and consider every film as my last one.

My biggest worry is that we have to keep making good music, and I want to do well, but I wonder if I will be able to.

Well, I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.

I have yet to write that one song that defines my career.

I'm very particular about the kind of music that I record and sing, and it would be the same way about the kind of movies that I would do.

I know what my sound is. I'm just trying to get it out there how I can explain it. I'm not trying to write or put out some music that doesn't represent me.

I want to make sure I continue to make good music that my mom and everybody around me can be proud of.

For me, it was a lot of pressure to make another movie after 'Inglourious Basterds' because I didn't want to do something wrong. I wanted to have a beautiful project for another American movie.

The pressure is all self-imposed, and it's to live up to the expectations of people who are going to shell out their hard-earned cash to listen to the music. It's actually more than that, though. I wouldn't want to make a record that didn't live up to my expectations.

I used to feel an obligation to invent things. I felt I was a failure because I didn't do massive great novels about Australia or the outback or something. I just don't feel that any more.

I'll probably never put out another album because I'm a tough critic of my work, and I don't think I could come up to those standards any more.

I don't understand why people make me want to make music that's a join-the-dots thing by numbers. I find it really difficult when people say, 'Aw, you should have made a really big hip hop record, that would have been really good for you' or, 'You should have made a song like Lily Allen, that would have been so great.'

When I create something, it's got to be special, and it can't just be to throw something out there because I feel like I'm Missy.

When we were doing 'The West Wing,' the hardest thing about doing 'The West Wing' was being compared to yourself. You go out there and want every episode to be as good as your best episode. I wrote 88 episodes of 'The West Wing,' and when you do that, one of them is going to be your 88th best, so your 88th best better be pretty good.

With every film, the pressure is on the rise for the next.

Every one of us at Pixar is worried that we're going to be the one to make the dud.

I don't want to just make music as I want to be legendary. I understand it has to be commercial as I have to feed my family. I am in between these two marks and they are not many people in this space. I want my work to my valued even if my face is forgotten.

I thought 'Gutterflower' was a really good record, but the album before that got so big that everyone expected us to go through that again.

No matter what, if you write a song that's great that everyone expects to be a hit, then everyone's going to be expecting another one from you. If you write a song that no one notices, you're going to want to write one that someone will.

I think, ultimately, the problem with something like this is that you actually have so many more opportunities to say something than you actually have things worth saying. And then, as an artist who doesn't want to do bad work, gosh, how do you fill up all that space when you really don't have anything actually worthwhile to say? And that's what makes the job tough, because the fans get mad - "That's not funny," or "You've been sucking for several months now." And you go, "It's not my fault! I'm trying."

I've felt like my last name put pressure on me as an artist. If you're going to call yourself "Legend," you'd better make some good-ass music.

I think of myself as a serious artist. Sometimes you can get in your head too much about that and forget that you have to have fun. I've been guilty in my career about that at times. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I didn't want anybody else to have a hit with it!

When the news is slow, or when there's just so many other responsibilities bearing down on me that I don't have the time to do it right, that's when it gets frustrating. As an artist, you just don't wanna put bad work out. So when you have to do it seven days a week, you're just gonna have some bad days and bad weeks and bad months and bad years.

People expect me to do the classics, and it is a lot like playing a favorite song.