Freddie Hubbard Quotes

It's either you finna create your own wave, you finna sound like me or you finna sound like G Herbo, you finna sound like Chance The Rapper, you finna sound like Juice Wrld. You ain't gonna get too far 'cause you sound like somebody. So, create your own lane and do your own style.

There's a reason I moved to NYC, and if I listed all the musicians on my list you'd grow weary.

I wanted to make good records. But my problem is I've got a low boredom threshold, so I wanted it to look and sound different with each album, which is really tantamount to suicide, cause people lose it, they lose it - they say: 'I like that, and that's not this.'

One good and bad thing about New York is there's so much exciting stuff and so many people doing something interesting. I actually find in New York that you become more careerist and more focused on what's the newest, hippest thing.

What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.

The hardest part of being an artist is discovering what it is you do differently.

As a young artist, especially in rap and at that time that I came out, originality was big.

When I got started in New York, if you were different from Miles & Dizzy it was very difficult.

Somebody said us artists have trouble with success because art is derived from struggle. I disagree with that, because truely doing your art is success, whether you make money from it or not.

I'm not here to change the music world, but I'm definitely here to show what I can do and express myself through my music.

It's amazing how fast generations lose sight of other generations. One of the first things the young composers who come to work with me say is that they want to write music people will like, instead of gaining their credentials by being rejected by the audience.

When I listen back to my music and everyone else that's out there, I'm aware that there's something I can do that the next guy doesn't do.

I've had a lot of folks tell me that my songs weren't quite country because they didn't really sound like anybody that had come along and done it before me. I felt a little out of place for a while.

So I'm in that half-hour business where the most money is, so that eventually I feel like the people that put on the Dupont show, like maybe my artistic effort is going to be a little different.

I think of a band like Animal Collective where they really follow their own sound and I think that's a really important thing to do. You can find an audience if you can find your voice.

You'll find little schools of musicians experimenting with different ways of making music in Brooklyn, all through Manhattan, in Queens, in Jersey, you know? The city is still bubbling with creativity.

The band couldn't have happened anywhere else in the world but New York. That was the catalyst.

I really want to do the unexpected, and I think that's what I did when I executed 'Long.Live.A$AP.' I wanted people to really see the message and that I'm an artist who not only has the capability of rapping, but of composing great music both for people of my generation and for people with different backgrounds.

In the past, I tried to be more of a typical session guitarist. I wasn't so concerned with impressing anybody.

When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different.

I just don't think I'm equipped to soundtrack the times. There might be someone out there who can do that, but I haven't cracked it.

I think they want to keep it separate, but I've never been a crossover artist for some reason.

You're always going to sound like yourself, but you can make really strong attempts to keep some similarities, but move away from what you did before for popularity's sake.

I try to not listen to all the girls I admire musically - like Nina Simone - just so I don't find myself imitating them, even if it's subconsciously.

Given New York City's cultural diversity, it has always attracted creative people.