Chicago Music Scene Quotes

My mom actually had a band called Six Pack - even though there were seven of them - who went around Chicago performing popular songs. Her voice was like Gladys Knight mixed with Aretha Franklin.

Chicago, we always had it. People just shied away because it's nothing businesswise from the industry. Everybody from Chi will go to N.Y.C. or L.A. - R. Kelly to Kanye to even Twista. Everybody is great from there, but it's nothing downtown.

Chicago's known for the drill. Keefs, Lil Durks, and whatnot. My music, on the other hand, it has a message to it. I think that's what sets me apart. I think it gets deeper than saying anything on a trap beat. I'm putting stories together, and people are relating to what I am saying.

I grew up listening to a lot of Chief Keef, Lil B, all that.

I never felt like that in my life. I didn't know human beings played these instruments. I heard them in Chicago and Louisville and St. Louis all my life, you know? But I didn't know human beings played them, you know? So the next day I went to Coontz Junior High School and I started on sousaphone, tuba, B-flat baritone, E-flat alto, French horn, trombone.

Da Pak was a group out of Chicago. It was a put-together group. We actually met for the first time at this showcase. They were like 'Yo, you should do a song together.' So we did. It just so happened that the name of the song was 'Wolf Pak.' They said, 'Y'all should be a group called Da Pak, and here's a record deal.'

Chicago's music scene is very inspiring. I like to think of it as a small community of friends who enjoy creating and inspiring each other.

Mahalia Jackson, I grew up around the corner from in Chicago.

Any conductor who tells you that if he is approached for the directorship of the Chicago Symphony that he's not interested in it, you know perfectly well he's lying.

As a kid, my parents had the typical stuff going on in the home, like Bee Gees, The Carpenters. Then I got exposed to what my brothers were listening to: a lot of classic rock, Led Zeppelin. It was around the mid-'80s when the whole Electro-Techno-Pop-House music thing started happening in Chicago.

When you're a Chicago artist, to play Lollapalooza, that's not a normal thing. It's artists on a path to a certain place that do that. Chief Keef did it; Kids These Days did it; Cool Kids did it. And I'm the next Cool-Kids-Chief, if you will.

I think people look at dance music and see it as kind of a bad thing, and bad people hang out in nightclubs, but it never felt that way for me. Growing up in Chicago, music was the thing that saved me, that kept me on the straight and narrow.

Music leaves such a big impression. I always wondered, 'Man, if I grew up in Nashville, would I be making Country records now?' I honestly feel like Chicago had such a big impact on me.

Chicago is a beautiful city. It's one of those places that people around the world see and say, 'Maybe one day.' There's so much excitement in the city about what you can accomplish and what you can be. We get this stigma, and rightfully so, because of the killings, but it's one of the best cities in the world. I'm biased, but I think it's a great city. Not only to be from, but to go to.

It's interesting: in the late '80s, there was this really random mix of new wave, industrial, and these early house records. And a lot of it was coming out of Chicago because of Wax Trax! So I always visited Wax Trax Records.

You know what I'd really like to do? I'd like to record some white Chicago jazz.

I'm a young dude from Chicago who grew up with Kanye as my image of hip-hop. Finding your voice in a room where you have to challenge Kanye is scary - but it's also life-affirming.

Chicago was a big influence on all three of us growing up. I admire their musical integrity. When the opportunity came up to produce them, I couldn't let it go by.

As a kid, I wasn't listening to The Who; I was listening to Frankie Knuckles.