I was a poor kid. I grew up watching film and television but primarily television. And I graduated high school, and I knew I wanted to go to college because nobody in my family had. So I was like, 'I'll go and be a theater major.'
When you get your first record deal, you will do anything, because you just want to sing.
I don't know if I've got the capacity for all of the creativity that I want to put out there, which is annoying and frustrating - it's kinda like torture.
I was writing lyrics since I was nine years old, so by age 15, I was feeling pretty confident about my talent.
Believe it or not, I want to keep growing my audience.
I'd love to have a hit record. I don't believe anyone that says they wouldn't like that.
I wanted it to be like Amy Grant, but it didn't pan out that way. My label actually went bankrupt, and I was left without a home.
As an artist, I think it's important to always keep growing, and I definitely want to keep challenging myself.
My father came to Chennai at the age of 16 from a village in Coimbatore. He was an artist and was clear he wanted to do something, so he came to Chennai and joined an art course for eight years before he came into films.
When I was, like, 12, I remember grabbing a mic, pretending it was a guitar, and performing in front of my friends. I didn't know at the time I wanted to be an artist.
All my life, I was even just wanted to attend the Grammys, like, just be there, so the fact that I'm nominated for Best New Artist, it feels like a dream.
What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.
I knew I was going to be a 2019 XXL Freshman.
I still consider myself a young actor, I'm 34; I still view it as the beginning of my career. You can get infatuated with acting in a way that makes you less an actor than an acting appreciator.
I knew I wanted to be the Steven Spielberg of dance.
When I got the appetite for more and more theatre, all I could think of was trying to get back to New York.
My father was an aspiring country singer and songwriter. He just didn't get that off that ground. I was afraid, very tentative to do anything with music for years. I didn't tell him I was playing in bands when I was away from home, because it had been such an unpleasant experience and a letdown for him.
I knew I wanted to sing and maybe I had a chance at it, so I just started recording myself maybe five or six times a week and putting them on YouTube as much as I could with hopes that someone would recognize me.
Mark my words, my rap career [is] on the rise.
Back then I thought if you cut a record, you were automatically a star.
I came from the South Side of Chicago wanting to be a rap artist and make videos.
I was trying to be the best rapper in the world. I wasn't thinking about acting.
Everybody told me this 'girl on the piano' thing was never going to work.
I spent my whole teenage life trying to get to London and go to dance school, but when I got there, I couldn't wait to get to the clubs on weekends. I knew I wanted to make music.
From the age of 14 to about 20, I bombarded record companies and DJs with my demos. I was desperate to get it out there. Most of the time, I got nothing back.
