Underground Success Quotes

I don't think I'm mainstream. I think what I am is lots and lots of different cults. And when you get lots and lots of small groups who like you a lot, they add up to a big group without ever actually becoming mainstream.

I was an underground artist, but the underground status was successful. Coming from where I came from to see where rap is now, now artists are selling from a million to eight million copies.

I secured Big Jam through my buzz in the city. My name got bigger and bigger throughout my 1st year of rapping.

When what you do is play characters, every day, all day, I wasn't really interested in playing a pop star on the weekends. I wanted to be myself, and it slowly turned into not being me at all, so I just didn't really see the point. If the music actually happens, at some point, it will be because some underground following happened, or some little elves heard it and were leaking it.

A lot of people don't remember anything since 'Ice Ice Baby,' but I've got 3 records out since then and they're all successes - but not commercially.

Artists have so much more control of their futures - they don't need to rely so much on major labels or big companies to help them. You have artists like Skrillex that can dominate so much that he gets 5 Grammy nominees, and he's clearly an underground artist.

I did my gospel record, but there was nothing really of it. Maybe a hundred people bought it. But it's one of those things on the internet that people find and they make into a big deal.

Word on road is the clique about to blow. You ain't gotta run and tell nobody they already know

Mainstream's never appealed to me, really. I mean, I've become popular over the years in certain areas. But mainstream, you know, I would rather the mainstream come to me.

I'm the diamond in the dirt, that ain't been found. I'm the underground king and I ain't been crowned.

Although I didn't set out to run my own label, I found it made sense quite quickly. I can say what I want and dance to my own tune, even if sometimes it's like nobody is listening. The trade-off is you stay 'cult' and resign yourself to a very modest level of what most people would call success.

The streets and the industry are two different things. You could be one super-hot artist in the streets, and you could walk into a corporate building, and people would be like, "Who are you?"

They just expected it to you know... Paul, Steve and I could have hired our own publicist, if we wanted to, but I kind of liked the way it was more of a cult thing and those that liked it, liked it, you know what I mean?