Skepta Quotes

It's hard to make great art when you've got too much pressure.

I put out one album one week, and I'm already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

My advice is: if you've got to be miserable to write great music, then drive a truck.

I suppose we'll make money off our album and our singles and stuff, but, like, they were made as we wanted them, exactly with what we had to say, and done exactly how we wanted them, right? And, like, we didn't put them out to make money. We put them out because we wanted to do them, do you know what I mean?

It's great to be able to find a way to release your music and do what you want to do artistically and not have to just worry about being accepted by the major label industry.

For the creative players, sometimes it is better that they are not under pressure.

I'm not gonna ever announce that I'm going to do an album again. Waking up with that on your head almost doesn't allow you to make the best album you can.

I've changed the way I look at things. When I put out a record or single I don't allow myself to set up expectations like, "This song must be a number one hit. Its got to sell X amount of records." I have fallen into that trap before.

I'm trying to give people the chance to put out their music without the bullshit pressures of other labels.

I can't tell you how freeing it is to have my own label. For the first time in my career, I have total control.

When I hit my 20s, I took a chill pill and relaxed because throughout my teens I was churning out an album a year. It was a treadmill of work then recording, promoting and touring.

The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

Hopefully, one day I won't have to be so caught up in all of that day-to-day, the Twitter and the Instagram. But I also would like to, at some point, turn off and take a break and also be, like, an artist.

I think the key to making records generally is to make 'em for yourself, regardless of the climate in the business.

I'm free to make music - I'm sitting on about 40 or 45 new songs that I can't wait to put out.

I think music will thrive where it wants to.

I don't really plan to be a pop star; I just want to be able to make music without the whole My Dad thing hanging over me, which everyone in my position goes through.

I think, for me as an artist, there are no boundaries. As long as I'm creating in a way that isn't trying to re-traumatize any wounds that I do have.

I say I have a midlife crisis every time I start and finish a record.

I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.

The problem that I have is with the music business. For some reason it seems almost impossible to get anything, any music, released which includes improvisation or soloing.

Being able to still make records is a privilege. I don't take it casually.

Am I R&B because I'm black? Am I pop because I have a song called 'Milkshake'? Or can I just be who the hell I am? Good Lord, people make it seem like we're doing heart transplants here, but we're just making music!

I think I'd have done better if I had been a little more relaxed-if I had not pressed quite so hard, if I'd not lost quite so much sleep.

I've known the glory of the stage and the glory of the spotlight. I still crave it. I want to be on 'American Bandstand' and 'Soul Train' as a solo artist. As a producer, songwriter and arranger, I help other artists say what they want to say. But on my records, I say what I want to say.