Goapele Quotes

For 'Narrow Stairs', the majority of the songs I brought in were guitar songs - songs we could sit in a room and just play. I can honestly say I had more fun and felt more inspired on this record than anything that we had done in a long time.

I would not consider myself to be a quote unquote real New York rapper. I don't even like New York rappers.

It's joyful in that there's another point of view on all things, you know, not just mine. That's why I like to write and collaborate with people. There's another point of view, and when those two things come together, and people work at it really hard, they get something that is the whole is more than the sum of - is that how you say that?

If you can make the best music ever but it requires bringing in a few different perspectives, I'd rather make the best music ever.

In the studio, I'm always throwing people on different instruments.

I think 'The Sunset Tree' is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.

That is the great pleasure of working with great directors. You get to look at the world through many different prisms. I guess I love talent, whatever form it takes.

I had my own musical ideas that Mick helped me with as well.

If you're going to write a song, try to get together with a collaborator because it's better to write with collaborators.

That first writing session, what Dan Hill calls a creative blind date, is always a real challenge, and you bring that back to your partner when you return to writing with them.

Working with Prince, it's kind of like he's opened up this whole new world, especially with the horn players. And I'm like, 'Man, only if I had strings on this album, too.' And I'm like, 'I wish I had an orchestra.' So I just, you know - I just wonder what's next, you know. I just want to constantly push myself for more.

If the writers all come from the same backgrounds, you are going to get the same sorts of characters. Get a broader variety of writers, and you get a bigger range of stories.

I love writing with other artists, I really do. Because you can try to guess what they would want to say and how they would sing it.

When you're from the Bay Area, there's this chip on your shoulder that you inherently come up with, because us, as a region, we've been overlooked in the grand scheme of the history of the genre and the culture.

As an actor, you have to believe in the point of view of a director; as a director, you have to be able to express what your point of view is and invite everybody to join you on that journey. So it's always about opening up.

I feel like my music has so many different things going on. I've always worked with many different producers. And a lot of times, each of them has a different thing that I really love about what they do.

I love working with people and having them bring something to the table that I couldn't. I think one of my favourite artists to work with has been Kucka. She's Australian, too, and it's great working with her because we kind of have a very similar take on music, and we like a lot of the same stuff. We're not super-precious about ideas.

People still kind of think of me as like a folk artist, but on the first record, I truly was deferring to other people to produce me.

To me, I don't care if I co-write or if I write alone. If it's a great song and it makes it to the record, then that's what is supposed to come, you know what I mean.

I'd love to write with some people from the U.K., like Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sande... there's a very long list.

Armaan has a simple approach and understands what a composer wants. I tell him, 'Give the song your own vibe but I will still come and fight with you and change it.'

For 'Hey Monday,' there were songs that I co-wrote with songwriters or producers, but our last EP, the whole band did everything together. I've had a lot of experience with co-writes, which is basically what I'm doing now. I am writing things on my own, but I really believe co-writing makes you a better writer.

'Cop Car' was made with all of my friends. I wrote it with my best friend.

When we were writing 'In Our Bones,' everything was bubbly champagne all the time so that's what ended up on the record.

One of the things that I loved about working on that first album was working with Billy Mann, who produced the album, and all the people who worked to finish it. Just seeing how they did things and learning.