Shura Quotes

I would go on the iTunes chart and see the hottest songs, then I'd cover them. People would go on YouTube and search for those songs. That's how I got my views. I'd post two or three songs a week.

I went from having 50 listeners to 50 million listeners.

Man, I was scared. I didn't know what to think. All of a sudden, I got a record climbing the charts, and I'm out in the streets. You know, workin' on the docks. And the first week, it sold something like 40,000 in New Orleans.

I hate that people have made the term SoundCloud rapper into a bad thing, because a lot of artists are underground and they don't have a way to put their music on. But to get that clout, to get that popularity, you might want to upload your music to SoundCloud - because how else is everybody going to hear it?

The Washed Out thing happened really quickly, and I wasn't really actively promoting the songs. I didn't think of them as any more than demos, really, and it sort of became a thing on its own.

Nobody cared about Baron Davis for so long, and then all of a sudden, it's like all these articles are coming out. People are passing judgment or thinking they know me.

I put out my first song, 'The Other,' in 2015 just on Soundcloud. It was always my most popular song but never really went far in a mainstream way. Then, a couple years after it came out, I watched it go from 8 million to, like, 100 million.

To go from not being recognised at all to literally, the next day, having people stop you in the street was very, very weird. I had to buy myself a great baseball cap.

I awoke one day to find myself famous.

I grew up in the day when the Beatles sold 1 million singles in a week. And all you've got to do now is sell about 10,000 singles and you're in the charts.

To be honest, I don't want No. 1's anymore. Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind the odd few, but I'd also like a record going in at eight and staying around.

Singles, whatever. But selling a million albums feels like an impossible thing to do.

The fact that 'Honey, I'm Good' made such a splash and that people were catching it on radio, on Spotify, on Pandora, it's driving everybody to go hear the album.

I don't get the airplay that one in my position deserves. 'Twist and Shout' gets more airplay than 'The Twist,' and that's not right.

When I started playing music, people weren't selling 5 million records. That was not the standard; that was not the focus.

I'm not worried about no charts or how long it's been out. Our records never go away.

It was very difficult to go from relative anonymity to such huge success in such a short space of time.

People aren't interested in music on Facebook in the way they are on MySpace, that's one of the big keys here.

I enjoy music that is commercial. I think that in order for music to be heard in a lot of different situations, you have to always consider that. Commercial music, for the most part, is popular music, and you always have to keep that in mind. It's not so much financial as making sure it gets the shot and is heard on the radio.

When I first started, I wasn't trying to go viral. I just liked making funny videos, content that people would enjoy.

I put on YouTube one single and, in 20 hours, have five million, six million people.

You have to make time for fans, and you really need to appreciate them. You have to remember that if they weren't buying, playing, or streaming your music, you wouldn't be in the charts, and people wouldn't be hearing your music.

'Cleveland' went viral, but it didn't necessarily pop. I didn't have that support. I didn't have a deal when I made 'Cleveland' or anything like that.

Selling a million records used to be a big deal. I guess it's not anymore.

We uploaded 'Ocean Eyes' to SoundCloud, and it started getting a lot of plays pretty much immediately.