Robert Downey Jr. Quotes

I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Universal Music Group have given me the opportunity to manage the companies I have contributed to my whole career. I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artist community.

He asked my girlfriend if we could come over and sing some of the songs that we had written, which we did. After he heard the songs, he said that he knew someone in the record business by the name of Bob Shad.

I'd been sending out demos and CDs for years. I knew my stuff was good enough, but I was getting nowhere. Then, three people - my future manager and two publishers - happened to send one of my tracks to EMI publishing in the same week. All of a sudden, they were interested!

I don't want to be judged next to guys like Suge Knight. I want to be measured next to David Geffen, Irving Azoff, and Clive Davis. Whether I measure up or not, I let my record speak for me. That's how I want to be judged - by what I've done, not by what people like Ice Cube and Dr. Dre have said about me.

I met Rick Rubin through Cat Collins, a DJ friend of mine that had worked for Rubin at American Recordings.

But I never imagined that I could ever have a career in music. I always thought it was like a mafia, that you had to sell your soul and know the right people and be in the right place.

Nobody is going to hand you a music career.

Everybody recommended me to Sinatra and Don Costa, because everybody was enjoying my music. I got a big following going on. Nino (Tempo) told Don Costa "you gotta come see this guy." And that's how Don Costa heard about me, through Nino Tempo. Then, Don Costa brought me to the attention of Frank Sinatra and Reprise Records.

I want to make sure that I sign dope artists, old and new, just to make sure that we come up with something new and creative.

I learned a lot while working on 'Live From the Underground.'

Music is one of those businesses in which, if you're talented and hustle hard enough, you can make it - specifically as an entrepreneur. If you look as far back as Berry Gordy, Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell, L.A. Reid, and Sean 'Diddy' Combs, there's a whole lineage of successful black entrepreneurs who have built their own companies from scratch.

After the first three or four years of me taking rap seriously, it started to look more promising. I started booking shows and more people were playing my music, so I starting believing this could actually work for me.

I will give full credit to the 'Indian Idol' platform for grooming me as a singer and shaping my career.

Dudes like me, where I'm from with my sound, don't get signed! It ain't like labels in and out of Detroit and it's a guarantee and I got talent that everybody sees.

Be in Nashville if you want to be in country music, because everybody that can help you is here.

I thought it was a prank. There is no way six different major labels trying to reach out to me. But it was actually happening.

I've watched songwriters, writers, producers, even artists that I've written hits for come and go. But to the world, it looked like Justin Bieber was my first success.

Since I was 19, I've said, 'I'm gonna sign for a million.'

If it wasn't for Al Kooper, there might not be a Lynyrd Skynyrd. He's the one who found us at Pinocchio's in Atlanta, Georgia, and signed us to Sounds Of The South through MCA, brought the band to attention.

When I was 13, I was saying that I wanted to be signed to a label. I was begging my dad to get me signed with somebody.

But I sent letters to people in the music business. And one day I got a phone call from somebody and he asked me when I was born and where I was born. And, you know, three or four days later I got a call. Someone said, you know, Yoko Ono wanted to meet me in New York. I got on a plane. And the next day I was having coffee with John Lennon.

My tour manager, I met him at Boot Barn. He was selling me a pair of boots... and he said, 'I moved to Nashville to be a tour manager, and I need work right now,' and I said, 'Man, I don't even have a tour manager. So you can tour-manage me.'

I want to be the guy with the fresh new sound. I can remember as a kid thinking about a DJ going, 'Ladies and gentlemen, here's the new one from Frankie Ballard. He's the guy with that hot new sound.' That's the dream.

People talk about the Ozzfest and what it can do for your career, and I guess I'm just oblivious to it.

I definitely like making my friends in the music industry.