I have a private press. I'm a book artist. I publish books of other authors and artists. I do the illustrating. I set the type. I print it myself on my press. I do everything but bind it.
This blend of musicians on '90 Millas' is historically significant on a number of levels. This is the first and quite possibly the last time that all of these legendary artists will play together on one CD.
As an artist, you dream about accumulating enough successful music to someday do just one greatest-hits album, but to reach the point where you're releasing your second collection of hits is beyond belief.
The script [for the movie based on the life of singer Connie Francis -- "Who's Sorry Now?"] is finished and is in the hands of several artists to see if somebody wants to film at the start of [2006].
I have never really liked gigantic-scale painting. I think that so many artists are seduced by scale - "Well, if I make it that big then it has to go in a museum."
In government they learned their lesson. They don't trust artists anymore. Now the money has to go through arts organizations. But, yeah, back then you could get a grant, and I got $5,000 - a huge amount of money.
I said to myself, "If the government thinks I'm an artist, I must be one."
People tweet me all the time and tell me how much they love it, how they can't wait for the show to come back on, that they're addicted to the show. So that's really rewarding. As an artist, we're all looking for that connection to an audience and when you find people as diehard as our fans are - it's sort of like finding the holy grail.
An artist's voice, communication, that's very important. The learning, the building of your energy to communicate deeper and deeper even without words, the expanse of your source-spark energy to reach people at deeper energy levels is very beautiful to learn about since it's our mission here as artists to help beings transcend limitations and any feeling, thing keeping their love down to show them that we are all artists with very special sides of energy light from the creator.
I think we're approaching an era where there's a consistent dialogue going on between artists and consumers. And I think that's going to be part of the solution to actually selling music.
I feel like all the artists that I really love, they've had a strong contingent of people who really hate their work as well.
I've been approached about doing some live performance collaborations with DJ's. That is something I'd be interested in getting into down the line, but I've worked very hard to distinguish myself as a laptop artist.
In 2008 it's easy to get huge before you have an album out with the Internet. I think that's great and you see a lot of artists like that. It seems like it's becoming rarer to find a band that has been touring for six years, doing small shows and then breaking out.
As the times are changing, you don't hear as many sample issues with rap artists. Part of that has to do with production styles these days, but the nature of copyright is also changing as the internet becomes more of a giant.
For me, acting is all about the aesthetic. I just want to keep honing my craft. Not that I'm taking myself too seriously, but every artist should consider himself Picasso. Otherwise, you're doing yourself an injustice.
The confident artist is a fool.
I think, as an artist I done conquered every way that you can go, as far as with creativeness, and directions and love, and you pissed off or, your happy.
The reason why I play around with the word legend is because this is my 7th CD and a lot of artists don't even make it that far. Many artists don't even pass three or four.
The internet has really messed everyone up. It has its ups and downs, but for a music artist it's a killer.
I believe artists are too focused on the younger crowd. Why would you want to focus on them? Let them do what they do. You continue to do what you do.
I think doing shows with other R&B artists like myself brings the attention to the crowd. You can't just do those one artist shows anymore. I don't like just me being on the show.
I just feel like I'm an artist that still has set a standard for artists that come up to follow and be like...So, yeah, I guess I'm a legend somewhat, I guess in my own right, but I still got a long ways to go.
A lot of artists still will not get that far. And get that far and be as successful. So, it's a great thing for me, and hopefully I can make it to number 10. And then I would want to start managing other artists, 'cause I think the best manager is an artist, his, or herself, that has been in the business and been successful and knows the ins and outs of the business.
Every person has parallel tracks. You have your personal life or your life as an artist, or whatever it is you do.
I notice a lot of younger artists have difficulty telling stories. They might have short stories where they express themselves well, but they don't really know how to tell stories with characters. That craft just passed them by.
