Chamillionaire Quotes

Now, [hip-hop/grime artists] Stormzy, Skepta, or the Section Boyz have to be validated by Drake, Rihanna or Beyoncé. They're rolled into this one urban culture bubble; it's not really to do with, "I'm specifically f - ked off about my country and what's going on in my town." We're very much only showing success to artists who impress American artists, and I'm one of them.

It was really weird to have a hit. Of course, we had a certain level of fame in the Pixies, but nothing I had ever done had been mall-kid friendly.

Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years. It's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment.

The fact that people are embracing me so well as a new artist and being taken so seriously is something I'm really surprised by.

I have a fan base that some people say is equal to that of signed artists' maybe even more.

But in my mind I've always been a solo artist- I've just been working with a lot of great people like Kanye and Alicia Keys and Jay-Z.

So in every sense, from an independent artist to a major label artist, you just have to have great product, great faith and great people, they all go together.

I knew how the suits used to talk about the artists, with barely concealed contempt. So I knew what was waiting for me round the corner. Because I wasn't one of those very unusual people like Neil Diamond or Elton John, whose careers just seem to span the decades. I knew I wasn't one of them.

I know that some of the great painters and some of the great artists didn't even start to 'peak', as you say, till they were in their fifties and sixties. And God knows, history is full of artistic people that weren't even recognized till they were dead and gone.

Obviously I've always loved singing and performing, but I fell in love with songwriting and then I enjoyed doing that for other people and getting coached. But then I kind of stumbled into the right group of people that really started to create some unique music for me and what I wanted to say, so then it made me want to be an artist.

I hate album covers where people are just smiling so big. It's like a neon sign that says PLEASE COME BUY ME.

I think that people have been claiming hip-hop as being dead since the moment it started. I think there are people - and I can be included in that category sometimes - that get frustrated feeling like maybe the industry has handcuffed itself, or trained its artists to do or think about music in a way that classically hasn't led to the greatest records in hip-hop.

I'm actually 100% independent. I'm not a Universal artist. I'm signed to myself.

A lot of people, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and a lot of people have written for other people, and of course Bruno Mars. So I think it's a great way to break into the industry and show people what you can do and show them your talent and people tend to listen a little differently to your own music as an artist, when you've proven yourself as a good songwriter for other artists.

I think now the music is good. I tell people all the time who like to be in the music business you got to have a hit record.

I did my gospel record, but there was nothing really of it. Maybe a hundred people bought it. But it's one of those things on the internet that people find and they make into a big deal.

Six months is the most you can ask of any fan in this day and age, with the Internet and all these new artists. I understand that my music is in a lot of mediums. Some people want me to make an R&B album. Some people want me to never sing again. I just don't want people to be able to draw comparisons between my old songs and my new ones.

My ultimate goal is to really be a huge music artist to the point where one day people forget that I was on a reality show.

Very few people do covers of my tunes.

The only people who are afraid of file sharing are the people whose albums are so dull presentation-wise that nobody cares about owning the actual finished product, and the people who have so little connection to their listeners that said listeners have no reason to care whether the artists they like are getting reimbursed for their efforts.

You tellin' me people don't look at Kanye West like the Glitch.

How big can you be if just the underground niggas know you? You can't buy your mom a house when you just an underground celebrity.

I'm about to make people forget about Madonna.

I hate categories. Hank Williams is a great artist, period. Bob Dylan is a great artist, so is Marty Robbins. They just classify these people and put them in categories so they can sell the thing easier.

Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.