BJ the Chicago Kid Quotes

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

I try to write life and not songs. People live life, and when you write life, you're going to mess around and touch somebody's heart, and they'll relate to you and what you're singing about.

I want to relate to my fans as much as possible.

I didn't think I was helping other people. But I think that comes hand in hand with trying to be able to connect with people, and if you make things too personal, then it's harder for people to relate to you. Otherwise, it's just them listening to you read your diary.

For me, getting my personality across is so important in getting that connection for people that enjoy my music.

What I have that's special in my music is substance. It's music that people can really relate to. I know I'm gonna rap something that somebody has already been through in their life, something that they will understand.

We have a song like 'Ready to Love Again' that is really, really special to me. It's the one that I relate to the most. It's very personal, so we really allowed ourselves to go there and be vulnerable and show the fans that we feel and we hurt and we love just like anybody else does. I hope they feel that when they hear it.

If you'd asked me then if I saw how big 'The Steve Harvey Morning Show' was going to be, I couldn't tell you. But I knew I could reach people not as a character but as Steve Harvey, because although I tell jokes for a living, I've also lived, and I think I can relate to you more than you know.

Sometimes I think to get to the emotional level of a scene, you don't necessarily have to have experienced the exact thing that person has experienced, but whatever you have in your life that has gotten you to that place is usually enough.

If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good. But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about.

I'm very close with my fans. I'm very involved with my fans, so I've seen the influence that I can have on a child or on the mind of somebody.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

When you have a chance to play a character people can relate to, it's rewarding.

I'll never sing something that I've never been through. So even if I didn't write it, I have to have at least experienced it.

I've never really broken this down before, but, in movies, you almost have no connection to fans. And if you do TV, you're kind of connected, but they know you as the TV name not your real name. If you do radio, there's more of a bond there. And then if you do a podcast it's like you're literally inside of your fans.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

I think what I'm trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience.

Engaging with the audience lets them know I'm approachable. I don't like that whole, 'You can't talk to Sheila E thing' - I don't like that.

It's amazing when I do a gig how many people of different ages come up to me afterwards and chat to me about songs. The emotions I feel are what any person can relate to. Sometimes I'm just a narrator.

People see truth in my films. That's what they react to, and that's what they relate to.

I have a lot of real life experience that I can draw on. And I think that shows in the characters that I play because I'm always trying to find somebody - or find characters to play that I can identify with on a personal level or relate to. And I think it makes for a little bit more of an honest portrayal.

Whenever I perform, people get me because I'm talking about things that people can identify with and relate to. I'm not just up there doing jokey, jokey, joke.

When I'm talking to a large audience, I imagine that I'm talking to a single person.

If you show you're human and have something to say, people will connect with you.