Kendrick Lamar Quotes

I didn't get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I'm a singer-songwriter. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want.

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

I love music because you can create a world through your records. I have total control over what I do and what I wear. It's like my own world out of my imagination rather than someone giving me lines.

Music is such an intensely personal thing for me, and I knew if I was going to do it, it would be in my own way.

I never do anything to strictly satisfy a fickle, ever-changing commercial world. I do the music I like to play. It's the only way I feel comfortable existing in the industry.

My music is pretty versatile; I have a lot of genres and styles. I don't think I should be pigeonholed into one thing. So we'll see where my career goes.

I don't want to be held down by genres so much.

I've accepted the fact that Limp Bizkit is my band, one that I'm a part of, a band that I've built from the beginning. It does me no good to be in somebody else's band playing their music, like Marilyn Manson or Korn. Being in Limp Bizkit allows me to be myself.

What I do isn't black music; it's just my music.

I really love music that's on the periphery of not fitting into a clear genre. I felt like I was constantly being described as something I didn't really feel like I identified with.

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.'

To me, that's what music entails. It's freedom, it's having the undeniable confidence to express yourself in a way that you know is right.

Music should not be a contest, it should be an individual thing that each band is putting out from within themselves.

If you are a soul singer, you are a soul singer. If you are a heavy metal singer, then you are a heavy metal singer. What's color got to do with it? I don't go around thinking, 'I sing soul music and I'm white.' I just sing the way I feel.

I like hearing fiddles, steel guitar, acoustics up loud - really rock & roll stuff but with a country sound behind it. That's just who I am. I'm not trying to prove a point; I am just doing what I like. But I don't have any problems with any other artist coming in and doing their own thing.

I just know that I'm a fan of all different kinds of genres. You're supposed to be free doing music, and that's how I feel.

I don't want to sound like Ross; I don't want to sound like Puff. I want to make my own music: French Montana.

When I got into the music industry, I wasn't focused on being the most famous artist or even getting a major record deal. It was just to make music on my own terms or create my own image, do my own hair, do my own makeup.

My job is to just express something that I want to express. And if I'm ahead or behind the curve, that's for others to decide.

I don't like being put in a box. I just make music, you know?

I've always tried to stay clear of being labeled, putting a label on what type of music that I make.

The way that I've always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love.

People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

You know, if Kelly Clarkson wants to do country albums because that's what inspires her, then let her do it. Look at Kanye West or Ludacris... they aren't rappin' and cussin' like they were on their first few albums, so what does that make them? It's all in the eye of the beholder and the listener. We all use our outlet to grow ourself.

I make the kind of music I like.