BJ the Chicago Kid Quotes

I always write my music based on what is going on in my life at the time.

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment.

I want to write music based on my life, my past experiences and heartbreaks.

Every personal experience of my life impacts my music.

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing.

I've been hugely inspired by the songwriting of Lauryn Hill and Tracy Chapman - on their albums, they really tell it like it is.

Inspiration for my music just comes from, you know, my life experiences.

I think I'm more influenced, just in general, not by blues artists, but more by stuff from Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder is probably my biggest musical influence of all. And Donny Hathaway.

I draw inspiration from anything and everybody and that's what country music is to me... real life stories and real life emotions.

Everything I've experienced, things that my friends have experienced and we talk about, things that are on the news - all aspects of life are in my message.

I feel like 'Beware' is a heartfelt song - it's something that is definitely a story, something that I cultivated from personal stories, some from just other stories in just wanting to make a good song.

It's not until I hear songs that I've done, that I realize how much of an inspiration music from the '60s and '70s has been.

Music and songs are written at different periods of time, at different times in your life. They reflect the feelings you have and to be honest, I quite like having positive emotions.

I'm not talking about Russia in my music. I've never been to Russia. I'm not talking about Africa, Switzerland, China. I'm talking about me being American and growing up in a crazy world and helping to reflect all different sides of life.

I think people do want to relate their entertainment to what's going on in their lives. Not everything.

I realized I was tired of singing about trees and flowers. I wanted to sing about real life. From then on, nobody could tell me anything was better than blues.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

The single 'Tha Block Is Hot' was a song that was true to life.

'Love Will Keep Us Together' was a combination of three different singing styles - Al Green, the Beach Boys, and Diana Ross. I loved all these people, and I put their singing styles together and wrote that tune.

My music has been inspired by true events in my life.

What I see, what I went through, what a friend of mine may have went through, whatever - I rap about it.

My music comes from my personal background.

Artists like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Ann Peebles, Isaac Hayes, and so many more gave me hope when I was an angst-filled teenager trying to make sense of it all... They were my teachers. Through their music, I learned how to live, how to be true to myself, and how to tell my story as a songwriter the way that I was feeling it.

As a musician, it's only natural that my music mirrors my life.

I think, no matter what, when you're writing songs, most people write about the extremes of their experiences.