I always paid attention to Lil Wayne - close attention. He's my idol. He's still my idol.
For me, a story begins with music: I feel the rhythm, the cadence, the pulse of the characters and their voices and the setting. Because I had just finished writing a book called 'Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine,' I was already filled with the music of the lives and culture of the Irish people, so I thought, why not use it?
I have no problem with religion, and I grew up with a strong curiosity about spiritual matters, but my searching took me away from church and community worship to the internal journey. Before my recovery began, I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter.
I feel it's my job to continue being a student of music if I want to continue being an artist and a producer of other artists. You have to keep filling your mind with other music. You have to be ahead of the curve.
I used to be a pop singer; well, not used to be. I am an R&B singer. My emphasis was on Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan and Aretha Franklin.
'Black Hole Sun' was written in a car when I was driving home from the studio one night. Pretty much everything that you hear was written in my head.
It's like something happened to you that caused you to do what you do...you heard something somewhere, you felt something about this music that was definitely part of your own vision. That's what the whole thing is like.
Throughout my years in From First to Last, I was always dabbling and making electronic music on my own time. The first records I ever owned were crossover electronic rock, like Prodigy, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails.
I was inspired to play electric guitar from listening to a lot of Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and B.B. King, and that's always been the kind of music that I gravitate toward.
I pull a lot of the stuff that I play off the rhythm tracks - and Keith Richards has been one of the main contributors to my inspirational playing.
Emmylou Harris is just the biggest influence of mine musically, her and Dolly Parton.
Rza just used the whole synopsis of the karate flick and capitalised offa that around this music. Some things you find out and you compare to yourself, and you're like, 'Wow, it has so much comparison to it', you start to live like that. And that's what happened - we started callin' ourselves Wu-Tang.
I have a fan who suffered with leukemia, and apparently, the only thing that helped him through that was my music, so of course that's the ultimate sense of achievement. It's an incredible feeling.
The thing about hip-hop producers, and the thing about hip-hop musicians, is that we listen to everything. And we're inspired by everything. I'd say even more so than any other genre of music.
Making music is what drives me - not awards, not Internet fame, not even exorbitant amounts of money. My fans call themselves 'Aadeez,' and they are the most loyal lot. I make my music for them. I love them.
I always write my novels with music (I don't listened to the music seriously.) Music seems to encourage me.
I started dreaming of becoming a singer after seeing Michael Jackson in the 'Billie Jean' video. The mix of fantastic choreography and amazing music made such a huge impact on the music industry.
Stevie Wonder was a big influence in my life.
I got a guitar when I was six and, instead of learning other people's songs, started to try to write my own, even at that young age.
My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music, eventually I wanted to play an instrument.
Nas was a huge influence. That's probably my favorite rapper of all time.
In the Troubadour days, it was all those songwriters that I hung around with all the time, so I could get songs and find out what was going on. So we all knew each other, and we just carried each other's word around.
I was listening to Jimi Hendrix; I just admire his artistry and creativity as an artist.
I will never stop making music.
As a kid I used to pretend I was John Denver, of all people, and play the guitar and sing Take Me Home, Country Roads.
