AJ Tracey Quotes

You know, somebody mentioned that I was sort of a jazz-pop singer. And I'm thrilled that somebody would find that, at last, in my presentation, because it's such a part of where I live.

I'm a rapper-singer, or singer-rapper - it's not one before the other. I do both.

Three-6 Mafia, we were always doing different kinds of things, and we like rock music, we like whatever - not saying they was rock, but they had a little rock-n-roll with some of their music, a little rock with it.

I am a hip-hop artist, as you probably know. My hip-hop name is Big Smalls.

In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.

I don't think I really make singer-songwritery-type music - it's not my strong point.

On 'Idol,' you have to show off your vocal abilities, so I stuck to the ballads, so I'm glad my first single is 'Tonight' so I can show off my fun, young side, and what I want to do as an artist.

The people who go get an LL album want to hear LL. They don't want to hear LL trying to sound like DMX or whoever else is out there. That's not what they want to hear from me, because if they want to hear that they can go get the real thing.

I've always said that I count myself as a classical crossover artist. To be so, you have to have the core classical training, which I did for many, many years, but also be interested in the pop side of things. You can fit in somewhere in the middle. I feel I do that really well.

If the lyrics are something new, then maybe I want to give it a more traditional form, or the other way around, but not have all one or the other.

If Mozart were around now he would write a killer rock song.

Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things.

I kind of remember a friend of mine saying, like, you guys should make a rap record. You know, because we were already making punk records. We were a punk band. And I kind of thought, that's crazy.

To the U.S. and the world, I'm just known as some funny song and some funny music, some funny video guy. But in Korea I'm doing one of the biggest concerts; it's not a dance music concert. I'm playing with the band, so I change my every song to a rock song.

My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes.

If you went to see me today, you might not like my music.

People ask me how could I go from country to jazz. It's been a natural convergence for me.

I hate that when you introduce yourself, and you're a rapper, sometimes you gotta say, 'I'm a musician.' Or, 'I'm an artist.' 'I'm a recording artist.' 'I'm a vocalist.'

I think it's a tough transition. It's easy to go from comedian to rapper, but to go from rapper to comedian is tougher.

I would love to collaborate with Chance the Rapper. I love his lyrics and his sound and everything.

Don't get me wrong - we love our hip-hop, but in its own context. Rap has no place in our music. Is what we do rhythmic? Sure. Is it syncopated? Certainly. But our music has nothing to do with hip-hop.

I don't think I am a soul singer and definitely don't think that I am a country artist by any stretch.

Everyone has their own journey, and for me, going from singing background to writing songs has truly opened doors for me and has also helped me find myself as an artist in terms of what I want to say and the style of music I want to have.

I've been rapping on some crunk beats and getting down on the South music for years. I feel like I can do it all.

What I did with Slash and the Conspirators was a very different kind of music. Genre-wise, it is a step in a different direction.