Ne-Yo Quotes

I used to sing like Nat King Cole. I mean he was the guy when I was comin' up, and you know, man, people used to say of me, "Damn, he sure do sound like Nat King Cole." But there was a day, and luckily for me it was early, when I woke up and asked myself, "Well, when are the ask me to sing because I sound like me?" So my advice is, never do anything that you don't like.

When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - 'Nick of Time' and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say.

I created my lane. No one can ever run my lane because it's mine. I'm the Michael Jackson of my lane. And you know, nobody was as great as Michael. I love Prince, but he's not Michael.

I think a lot of singer-songwriters get compared to each other, but I'd like to think that what I'm doing is special and specific to me.

When you're recording classic songs, you've got to kind of make them your own, and you can't always worry about what people are going to think.

I felt Michael Jackson was inspired a little bit more from the elegance of a Fred Astaire. Michael loved Sammy Davis, Jr. and James Brown and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. But he wasn't any of those people. To be inspired is one thing, but he made it all his own.

Don't be afraid to take liberties with this music. Try and put some of yourself into it.

I love the pioneers like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, but when I write music, it comes out in my own way.

You should be able to do you. That's what differentiates an artist from a singer.

I like hearing fiddles, steel guitar, acoustics up loud - really rock & roll stuff but with a country sound behind it. That's just who I am. I'm not trying to prove a point; I am just doing what I like. But I don't have any problems with any other artist coming in and doing their own thing.

If you make modern rap music, how do you write without ripping off anyone else? It's just about having a distinct voice in your songs.

Everybody can dig The Beatles, but why should everybody dig us?

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

Music is my only guide. I don't care if people pigeonhole me. Miles Davis is my hero. He covered Cindy Lauper and Michael Jackson, and he didn't give a hoot about what the purists said.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me.

David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C'mon - Van Halen doing 'Dancing in the Streets'? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else's music.

They can sonically sound like me, but nobody's ever gonna be able to write songs like T-Pain. There's only one of those.

In other words, musicians know that going back to the Spoonful, what we were doing was not copying.

My writing voice is a little quirkier, more singer-songwriter-y than the Top 40 stuff I cover.

The reason I put make-up on or wear the costume is to try and find my own style. It's like my guitar style - I'm just trying to be an original artist.

A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It's an individual-feel thing, you know?

I'm putting everything on the line in being able to express myself in a different way than rappers normally do. They might say, 'It's rap' or 'It's R&B,' but I'm stepping outside the box and making music for me and making music for the fans to understand me. I'm going the extra distance to be able to come across different.

I'm a mash-up of everyone. My influences would be Michael Jackson, Brandy, Aaliyah - those types of people. So if you can imagine them - and with me taking them, and then putting my own twist and the influence on it - that's musically what I would sound like.

I have many musical inspirations, but I would really love to just be me. My very own artist.