“I want to own my masters. That’s the main thing–owning all my music.”

Being old didn’t seem like an accomplishment. Everyone I knew who was old was like sick or broke. It just didn’t look appealing until I moved to L.A. and started interacting with people who were 50+ and still kicking it, having money, living large.

I started off making beats when I was like 12. Then when I linked with people who make beats full time, I was like, ‘Bet, now I can focus on writing and singing.’

I was reading Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’. It’s one of my favourites.

Me and Goldlink have known of each other for a minute and our managers know each other so they set up a studio session. When we got in the studio, we was cool; we’re from the same area so we have a lot in common.

In order for people to take what you say seriously, they have to know who you are as a person.

Before anything, I wanted to be a rapper. I used to make beats and I would start singing to layer my beats and that’s kind of how I realized I could sing.

I feel like any way you can get the message to resonate, I’m all for it.

I still got bars, I just use ’em differently. I’d say I’m a better singer than I am a rapper at this point because I’ve been sharpening my sword.

Music is my one opportunity to let out how I’m feeling when I’m not talking to a chick or my mom, you know what I mean? It’s just venting.

There’s the hype stuff that people love for five minutes and then there’s the stuff that changes cultures and shifts how you look at music. And then there’s that rare point where that hype stuff changes the game.

You work on something for so long that you become numb to it. Like, you don’t even know how to listen to it because you listened to it so many times.

You gotta question the purpose you serve for those who invite themselves into your life. Learn who you are and always question the motive. No one knows you the way you do.

I don’t wake up thinking about the genre of R&B as a whole. I just make music.

Don’t stop until you get where you’re trying to go.

We’re products of this world we were born into. We all battle our own demons. Everyone is troubled in the dark, but, please just stop & think about the babies. They’re gonna be here long after we leave.

When you’re initially making music, you’re kind of just shooting at the air.

The amateur tweets. The pro works.

The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.

Letting go is an art – master it and be free.

I think it must be lonely to be God. Nobody loves a master. No.

Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge.

He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.

The path of mastering something is the combination of not only doing the best you can do at it, but also doing it the best it can be done.

Those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.