Schoolboy Q Quotes

You can tell an honest artist from one who's just given all their songs.

All I can do is focus on staying true to the style of music I write and sing because that is the only way it's going to come off as honest.

When I write a book... it's the same essential approach to music as with books. It has to be something I want to hear or read. Hopefully the audience comes along, since that's the only way you can write righteously. I have to ask, 'What do I want to hear?' not 'What do people want to hear?'

I'm very serious about what I write and who I allow to produce the music, because I want to make sure it's a true album, and not just something pushed out there to create hype and more fame for myself.

When you listen to my music, you're going to know that you're getting the real me, my real thoughts and feelings... I want people to be like, 'Oh, he's fresh out with his music for it to be this good.'

I'm still trying to keep it original, staying true to my sound.

Basically my personality, and my talent, and my lyrics are so outstanding that what listeners can tell is that I put so much hard work into what I'm doing because it comes through my music. So I feel that my music for one will get my point across. I write from my heart and my spirit... You know what I'm sayin'? Some people don't know their place, they're just like "Oh I rap because I'm tryin' to get this or that, and I'm doin' this because I want to get money.

In the music industry, it's pretty easy to make an album just because you want to keep going, like, 'This is the formula.' But the formula is your life. You have to live your life and you have to live it well - that's the formula.

If you want to say something profound, writing from your heartbeat is different than writing from the loud voices you get from music. If they're rapping from noise, it's about robbing people. It's that simple.

The work that I feel is most authentically mine is the one that is my first reaction, the first thing that feels like the truth. In aggregate, those choices, those series of decisions, create your point of view, your visual language.

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.

I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

The only thing that's authentic about what a writer writes is his work.

The big cop-out would be to accept popularity rather than opting to try to create potent work. It's so easy to do the popular thing, the expected thing, and that's where you start to cheat yourself - and your fans, in the end - because there's an inherent dishonesty in pandering and dishing up what everyone's expecting.

I do not feel any artist can produce great art without putting great personality into it. It is always a piece of you that goes on the screen or the canvass.

Learn your instrument. Be honest. Don't do anything phony. There is so much crap floating around. There is plenty of room for a bit of honest writing.

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

People have become less discriminating listeners, which is tragic, really. There's a lot of emperor's new clothes out there, whether they're female or male solo acts. That bothers me. It's hard to break through, and it's like climbing Mount Everest if you actually do.

If you look at the common denominator of all the comics who have had big success, it's being true to their nature... that's what takes a long time to learn.

It's good to please the network, but you really just have to tell the stories you want to tell, and if you try to please other people, it ends up starting to water stuff down. Those decisions we have to make are hard, but we usually just err on the side of 'What would we want to see?'

My whole goal is to be honest and sincere with the music I'm making.

I wanted to create a body of work that I was proud of. It's come from honesty and integrity, without forcing anything from myself, the ideas had to come instinctively and organically. Whether that translates to people in that way, it's kind of out of my hands now.

The intent of Slayer's musical and lyrical content has always been selfish. We feel very strongly about the importance of staying true to ourselves.

I've always said that I would only ever release something that I would want to listen to as a fan.