Cross-Genre Quotes

It's been really cool to me to watch someone like Sam Hunt, whose lyrics and roots are in country but you can hear that he listens to Drake and Justin Timberlake - and that's OK. It allows songwriters to be more honest because it's like, 'This is who I'm listening to.'

Performing with Thomas Rhett our song 'Craving You,' I'm so excited for the fans to see it and sort of see our worlds come together because I feel like he's sort of a genre pusher and boundary pusher, and I feel the same way about my music.

I'd like to do something with Michael Buble, Harry Connick Jr., Tim McGraw, Justin Timberlake, and Gwen Stefani.

I'm very eclectic in my music tastes - anything from Nina Simone to Beethoven to Talvin Singh.

People who love R&B will love my music, people who love rock will love my music. It's soulful, it's pop. It's a sound that relates to everyone.

I like the fact that I can rep New York, but my style does not - I'm not trapped in a New York thing. I can do art songs with other artists and it's seamless.

I had always wanted to be a writer who confused genre boundaries and who was read in multiple contexts.

I'm universal. As much as I can get out a 'Firework' with Katy, I can get a 'Lil Freak' out with Usher. Or a 'Lay It Down' with Lloyd. I can get Caribbean as I did on 'Rio,' then go from there to working with No Doubt.

'Need You Now' is a universal subject matter. It's something that not just country fans, not just pop fans - everybody's been there. And the production was a little left of center.

Barriers have been broken: rappers are singing, and singers are rapping. You might catch a rapper on a rock song, a pop artist on a hip-hop song - there are so many different things that are going on today. That is the same way in which we live our lives; we're all over the place. I like to try different things.

You can be hip-hop to the max, but you still know 'Sweet Home Alabama.'

To me, fantasy has always been the genre of escape, science fiction the genre of ideas. So if you can escape and have a little idea as well, maybe you have some kind of a cross-breed between the two.

I hope people describe my music as lyrically driven, cross genre. Kind of alternative, kind of indie, kind of rap, kind of everything.

I really just blend like rock, R&B and rap together to create a sub-genre, but it's very versatile.

We just met for the first time and David Byrne was like, "Hey, you want to sing on this song?" and I was like, "Yes, I do want to sing on that song." He's the most legendary dude but I wasn't thinking about how he was a legend when rehearsing. I was just thinking, "Wow, this guy really knows what he wants in his music." And that ended up being the vibe, like "Oh, you wanna try that?" "Yeah, that sounds great!"

That's how I'm able to work and move between so many different genres - I want to be part of what's happening, I want to make new things.

I see my fans as music lovers. I really love that. There's no age group or demographic. It's people of all ages and backgrounds. Country people and non-country people. I wanted to make music across the board.

I'm a hip-hop head, but hip-hop actually introduced me to other genres of music because I started to wonder where a lot of these samples came from. So I fell in love with Bobby Womack or Willie Hutch because I wanted to know where those samples came from.

I just love variety. I love being able to do different things. Do period pieces and sci-fi. I love being able to move between genres and be flexible.

I like the idea of blending genres.

It's incredibly cool that R & B artists like Kanye and the Weekend, who from a completely different genre to us have tapped into 'The Hurting.'

For me, the '80s was great because you had Boy George, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper. No one put boxes saying this is urban, this is popular, this is underground. It was just good or bad.

I would love to work with Sir Anthony Hopkins. How and why that would happen in a comedy I'm not sure - why he would be dragged over to my side, or I'd be be dragged over to his side.

To just get in front of different kinds of audiences is important for me. I do think it's important for music to be a big family. Whether it's country or not.

Despite being a classical musician, I keep poking my nose in other genres of music.