Dan Smith Quotes

I'm an old soul. I like the Nat King Cole; Sam Cooke is my favorite singer of all time. But I'm into neo-soul; I'm into R&B. Some of the modern stuff appeals to me, but most of it comes from an older time.

I prefer black music in general.

I would like to involve myself in some black music. I would like to do some blues and some gospel music. I want to try stuff from other genres and try to widen my musical base.

I like African music but also R&B, rap, alternative rock, and classic.

Destiny's Child's harmonies remind me of Earth, Wind & Fire.

Rag 'N' Bone Man is for everybody, like Wu Tang is for the children.

I'm obsessed with Norah Jones and Amy Winehouse, Etta James. I'm really into blues and R&B type of stuff, '90s hip-hop; that's my jam.

I started with soul music and icons like Aretha Franklin and Etta James and then moved to R&B and artists such as Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. Electronic music came later on, when I was in high school and I was really influenced by artists like Skrillex and Major Lazer.

If I do something related to English music, it will be definitely in the direction of R&B and pop.

I grew up listening to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and lots of blues, R&B and Motown.

The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre.

Randy Newman seemed like an even worse singer than me. I liked Ray Charles, Levi Stubbs, Jack Jones, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett.

I mostly listen to very popular songs. But I'm a huge fan of Stevie Wonder, and I love jazz - Glenn Fredly, Diah Lestari - so 80% jazz, 20% mixed with everything - disco, hip hop.

I like a lot of old-school R&B, soul, and classic rock.

There were a lot of R&B groups that were my heroes, but the funny thing about my career and the way it went and where it went, at first I didn't really want to do pop music. I was a little bit more into jazz and R&B.

Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.

This record has a lot of influences that I'd love to cover, like Marvin Gaye and Earth, Wind and Fire. Maybe I'll do some covers of my major influences during my live show.

You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.

I wanted to bring the R&B flavor and other Westernized sounds to my music, because that's the type of music I grew up listening to.

As would-be songwriters, our interest was in black music and black music only. We wanted to write songs for black voices.

I still love listening to the old stuff - Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, you know. I stick to the old school stuff, but I love Mark Ronson. I love John Legend.

I come from the Bronx, so I was exposed to every type of music you can think of.

I was raised on African music, Harry Belafonte, and the Boston Pops. Then I got a dose of soul and hip-hop. I related to it immediately.

I listen to a lot of Solange. I love old-school as well.

My music is a little bit of everything - R&B, hip-hop, EDM.