Raheem DeVaughn Quotes

I'm very hands-on with my own music.

I think that was the whole idea behind doing the solo record was to be able to do musically whatever I wanted to do.

I mean, if you decided to go out today and get you an instrument and do whatever it is that you do, no one can tell you how you're going to do it but when you do it.

In the band Semi-Precious Weapons, I got to sing, wear, and say exactly what I wanted for ten years.

Musicians are also interpretive artists and we are just as creative as painters and writers. We interpret in a way that expresses ourselves.

It wasn't slung together by a producer and a publisher. We decided we were going to take hold of our music and let it evolve organically.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

I make the kind of music I like.

I wanted to express myself more fully through writing and directing. It just feels like a package deal. Anytime you create anything, you try to exert mastery over your world.

I feel like when I'm on stage, when I'm writing songs, singing songs, I'm in the studio, I'm shooting videos, I kind of get to become this character, and I can make that whatever I want to make that.

There's no rule that says you have to make records constantly, like clockwork, to continue being who you are.

I've just been learning how to direct my own videos, choreography, doing costumes... every creative opportunity there is with my music I've taken.

I don't dictate the solos and I don't dictate the vocal harmonies.

I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It's all authentic.

Songs are not on a conveyor belt. I'm not chopping them up and putting them out.

When I act, I feel like I am a color in someone else's painting - I can be the best blue that there is, but I'm still only part of their entire picture - but, with music, when I am performing with Reserved For Rondee, I am the painter, you know?

I love the creative process, of getting to create your own show or your own movie, whatever it is you want to do, and have the resources to try and make that happen.

Acting is awesome, but I'm really, really able to express myself creatively in music.

When I work alone, and I'm in my studio, and I'm playing a lot of the stuff myself, I think the style of it becomes something a little different.

I just make videos and stuff. There's not much more to it than that. I'm a musician trying to express myself.

I love performing on my own scores. I do it quite a lot.

What I do is creative. It doesn't seem like that when I'm playing a piece that was written in the past, but the score is just the outline and everything in it is relative. The key is to make this piece written by someone else belong to you and then connect to the audience.

We've been fully involved in making our music, and to be personally involved is what we really asked for.

Nobody wants to make something that displeases people, but once you make a film, that's out of your control and you can't think about that. You just have to follow your head and make sure that you're satisfied by putting down what you intended.