PartyNextDoor Quotes

Well, I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.

Before I knew it, I was singing, 'I'm so tired of being alone,' and that's Al right there. From then, my attitude was, 'Let Otis be Otis and James be James. I'm not going to emulate them anymore.'

When I was starting out with record companies, there was a tendency to simplify the image as a prodigy. I have more than one adjective, and I've always tried to be myself and listen to my instincts.

I think being part of Pentatonix has helped my arrangement style a lot, and that's helped me expand myself.

As I've gotten older, I've realized the element that sounds like The Gaslight Anthem that's mine is always going to be me. The other three-fourths of it is going to be the other guys. I can't stop doing what I do naturally, whether I'm in The Gaslight Anthem or my own thing.

Music is progressive, you get out, you experiment with new people and you grow.

I think perhaps I've learned to be myself. I have a theory that all artists who would be important - painters and writers - must learn to be themselves. It takes a very long time.

Sometimes we need to take some time to reflect. Sometimes we need to do something different. Sometimes we need to do something not because others are doing it so we want to do the same, but because it is different.

I actually got to work with TM88. He was one of my big influences as far as producing. It was pretty cool. I had met him in California at the crib and it was one of those random meet-ups and we got to working from that point on.

That's why I make mixtapes. That's why I work with Don Cannon; that's why i work with Big Sean. Even though I don't rap, I got love and acceptance in that community, and that's something that I really take seriously and hold close to my heart.

But then as I got older, I got to know all these amazing artists like Alanis Morissette, Stevie Nicks, Debbie Harry, all these women who are really the creators behind who they are.

I listen to my early Gang Starr interviews, I'm like, damn I was really trying to sound like a New Yorker then.

Individually we all have to play to our strengths.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself

One of the most important milestones we'll all hit along the way is the moment when we finally own our unique point of view and realize how priceless it is.

I try to take a snapshot of who I am now, who I am becoming, as opposed to who I was when I was first starting to make records. I'm not trying to make boring adult music, but I try to make music more reflective of what matters to me now.

Even within one person, yesterday and today, there are differences. We must look at a deeper level.

Always listen to yourself. It is better to be wrong than to simply follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you will grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life.

You know what you can gain when you sit down with the Moroccans. As a person and as a musician. That's how you grow.

The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.

Paths are so much clearer when people stop looking at what everyone else is doing and instead concentrate on themselves ~Gabe

The more of you I see, the more I'm glad I'm me

So few hip-hop artists have ever advanced. Their songs on their seventh, eighth albums sound exactly like the songs on their first album. More than an artist, I'm a real person-and real people grow. And I wanna just sing my growth.

The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

I rejected the word humorist for a long time because I thought that it meant you had, like, a cardigan sweater with patches on the elbows, but now I'm old and I do. I grew into that word. I think at heart, all this time, I've been a diarist. I'm not ashamed of it.