Christine Lavin Quotes

My advice today, to established acts and new-coming acts, is the same advice I'd give to myself: pause for a minute, and really think about 'What is your goal? Where do you see yourself?'

It took me a long time to figure out how to act, and how to conduct myself in the business so I could get what I felt I needed to support my potential and give them what they wanted.

We had all this kind of freedom and 'get out of your head' kind of stuff and at the same time, we were trying to establish ourselves in the business. These two things are really difficult to bring together.

I want to continue to do some great work. I'm nowhere close to where I want to be. I'm a diverse person who's trying to use his art to make the world better.

I used to be focused on being the dopest rapper in the game, and then once that became what I was, I wanted something different, and I wanted to become the best businessman in the game. I wanted to learn how to master the business like I mastered the rap.

I think I've matured to a great extent. I think that I want different things now. That it's not about the celebrity status that you receive because you're doing the next hot movie. It's about doing good work.

I like to learn about things. I could learn about business, which I knew nothing about. Since the age of 7, I wanted to be a doctor and nothing else.

I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar, but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it, and you've got to be a businessman. But then again, you have to be true to yourself as an artist.

There is a difference between a great producer and somebody who is a big advocate of your music. Just because you're a big advocate for a band doesn't mean you need to be in the studio with them, and at the same time - we don't need to get into this conversation - you can write a hit, but it might not hit.

I developed my own production company. I'm reading different books and writing, working on myself. I'm being focused on that, but also being focused on in front of the camera and balancing mommy life at the same time. I just want to continue to move forward.

I don't think successful musicians were really put on this planet in order to have a great time, pat themselves on the back and say, 'Oh, what a clever boy I am!' I think that, like most artists, we were put on the planet to suffer just a little. And we do.

And frankly, when I made that record, hit songs were not what I was trying to achieve.

Several record companies had rejected my song 'Owner of A Lonely Heart' on the grounds it was 'too left field.' I never create to make a hit just to satisfy some record company executive's quarterly profit statement.

I don't like working with hitmakers. I don't want hits! You're not even allowed to say that word around me.

Every time I find myself stressed out, it's because I do things primarily driven by growth.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I'm really not worth being called an artist at all.

Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.

It's all about how can you take care of yourself when furthering your life's goals and ambitions, and purpose and whatever you choose - family, career - to maintain a really balanced, whole, healthy outlook.

I've been around the music business for a long time now, and I've had a lot of chances to do movies. But I didn't really want to do any until I found stuff that started to hit me in the right place.

If I spent my time wondering about what genre I wanted to be in or where I was on the charts, I wouldn't be able to write these kinds of song. I'd be too busy doing other things.

In 1987, I wrote a goal sheet. I didn't want to waste my life. I'd dropped out of college, and there was a lot of pressure from my parents. I decided, 'If you're going to do this, you're going to become the best in the world at this.'

All I've ever wanted is to improve myself and become the best, which is the reason I joined Real in the first place.

I do kind of marvel at my journey. But at the same time, I look back at a lot of the steps, and maybe not every step, but a lot of the steps, and since I was 12 or 13, I look at the people who helped me and the moments that were inspirational to me, and you can recall what my mindset and what my make-up was at that time to try and be the best.

Our society and media have lost touch with the job of the artist. The job of the artist has been subordinated to the job of the record seller.

There is a business side to me and a spiritual side.