Musiq Soulchild Quotes

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

My respect for artists is very high. I think to get the most out of them, you have to liberate them. I think part of liberating them is saying, 'Come up with something brilliant, new, and fresh. Stop thinking based on what has been beat into you by executives or publishers in terms of what's going to work and what's not. Don't react, just act.'

I like to make the music that I really love. You're supposed to make your favorite music that no one else played, and I'd like to just keep it at that and not really change it at all.

The minute you succumb to outside pressure, you cease to be creative.

No film should try to follow a trend, and do what film people think the public wants. There's no such thing as knowing what the public wants.

I wanted to make my sophomore film as different as possible. I didn't want to be pigeonholed. I didn't want to be identifiable.

My early experiences in animation taught me that following someone else is not a great idea.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

I think, as an artist, part of your job is being aware of what's going on around you and not selling out and not following the trend, which I'm totally against.

I learned to embrace my individuality, and if that meant writing a song on one chord over and over again, then that's what I do.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

No age is compelled to take its beauty from preceding epochs.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.

I associate creativity with independent music.

Just trying to be different - when I hear something - I don't like to go trampling on other people's sounds.

There's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist.

If you're always thinking about someone else's work, about the tradition you're working in, how can you possibly make anything good?

I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.

We make films that we ourselves would want to see and then hope that other people would want to see it. If you try to analyze audiences or think there's some sophisticated recipe for success, then I think you are doomed. You're making it too complicated.

What guides me is to do work that's more avant-garde - things that I think are special. You can easily become a celebrity and get caught up in all that blur. I just want to work and surprise myself.

I'd just like to inspire people to be themselves and do what they want and not conform to the rigid guidelines of the music or entertainment business.

If it feels like we're re-creating something rather than creating something, we don't do it.

I know, people have had different things to say about Marvel, about how creatively free they are or not free they are, but for me, the rule has always just been stay as good as I can possibly be, and stay one step ahead of the curve, and stay unique, and stay myself. And they seem to like that.

I've worked with people who wanted to be creative every day: it was like a goal to arrive with something very special. Sometimes it's just disturbing, because special is good when it's needed. But when it's not needed, it's confusing, and you go away from the authenticity by a strong desire to be unique and singular.