Artist Influence Quotes

I always paid attention to Lil Wayne - close attention. He's my idol. He's still my idol.

When you're an artist, you have a platform that can reach millions.

Without me, rap is just a bunch of orphans.

So the Madonna thing, I wrote a song with Diplo, she liked it, tweaked it and then made it her own and it became 'Hold Tight.'

Nas was a huge influence. That's probably my favorite rapper of all time.

We are blessed to not have violence at our shows. People come to our shows and act a clown. When you do music, you have no control who comes to your shows. I'm sure they have fights at Miley Cyrus shows.

I always give a lot of credit to Ronnie Dunn for making me fall in love with country music.

I looked at people like Lil Wayne. I would go to the studio and I would observe Wayne, and I would literally pray. I would say 'God, give me his work ethic'.

I think I'm influenced a lot by Drake in specific ways in my writing.

I started writing songs after I heard Hank Williams.

I met PJ Harvey when I was in England, and the first thing I want to do when I meet a songwriter I admire is to ask them how do they receive songs.

I get tons of messages every day telling me, 'Your music has provided me with answers.'

A lot of people forget that R&B put hip-hop on, R&B put rock on.

For our Spring 2015 collection, I was inspired by the spirit of the artist Francoise Gilot.

As an artist, you know as a person in the public eye, period, you kind of have a responsibility to the younger kids that are watching and emulating what you do.

It's like there's the rest of the world, and then there's America. Part of the reason I would really love continue to making music over here because so much of American music has inspired me, whether it's Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen.

Lauryn Hill inspired me so much. She had that whole women's empowerment vibe in all of her songs back when that didn't even exist.

If I'm writing for a particular artist, I definitely think about their past records, pay attention to the type of tempos that they like. If I have the privilege of actually being in the session with the artist, I just like to have a conversation with them.

A lot of the inspiration for my album 'Rules' was the cheekiness of Aqua.

Dizzee's just my childhood hero. He's definitely the inspiration. He's got himself to a very good place. He's defied the expectations of what British black urban music was like. He was the first person who made the rest of Britain realise it wasn't just a one-album-type situation. You've got to take your hat off to somebody like that.

One or two people have named their children after characters in my songs. That's pretty intense.

Alabama is somebody that I have always loved, but I think what is so cool about them - it's amazing, actually - is that even people who aren't enormous fans, you know their music. You know of them; you know what they've done in the music world. I think that really says something about them.

I don't have specific music for when I'm writing. I'm usually listening to the same playlist or 'artist' before I arrive at the computer as when I'm walking somewhere after leaving the computer.

The whole '400 Degreez' album was inspired by what Outkast was doing, Organized Noize. That was what I was listening to around that time.

When I was a kid, my favorite rapper was 50 Cent. He was definitely a big influence on why I wanted to do music.