There's so many people that follow the trend, and then it gets to a point where it gets a little stale. So, in music; I mean, whoever's the new trendsetter, that's who people follow.
The Roots are well-respected and considered vanguards in the music.
People have had the idea to do a '90s alternative tour for a long time. I didn't come up with that; I was the first guy to basically say it was time.
My heroes: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.
Guys like Future and me, we help create and shape the sound of music - not just Atlanta music, but music all over. If you really pay attention to the music being made, a lot of that is very heavily influenced by the stuff that we created. I listen to so many songs that's like, 'Damn, this sounds like my music!'
None of the jazz greats made music for the purpose of you going to check out music before them. Michael Jackson didn't make music so you could go check out Sam Cooke.
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.
Ain't nobody more punk rock than Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, even Little Richard.
I came around at a time when myself, Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna and George Michael, we were considered kind of dangerous.
The Police, they were the guys that were like the gateway to the mainstream. In England, there was a very strong reggae movement that was going on. Anything that was happening in reggae happened out of England. They were brilliant. They could spot a sound that was cool, the 'it' sound.
There are people who take on different objectives and missions in life. When you grow older, there's a a void - and right now, I'm filling a space where a lot of old rock, grime, hip-hop, punk artists left a vacant space.
Without people like Dylan and the Beatles and people like Paul Simon, I think rock n' roll would have died out like Dixieland jazz.
I don't know if Nashville will ever be ousted as the Music City. But I also think that here, over the last few years, Georgia has definitely kind of risen to the top as far as the crop of young artists coming out of this area that are kind of making waves, you know?
There's nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be. I mean everybody's just emulated us and now everybody just kinda takes our sound as their foundations.
