Jerrod Carmichael Quotes

I feel like I really tapped into a pretty honest emotional place for myself as a lyricist. There's a broad spectrum of emotions.

I love intimacy, always, of performing.

I just write about how I'm feeling at the time. If I feel like being cheeky and a bit straight up and a bit aggressive, you'll hear that in my music. If I feel like being very vulnerable and opening up about something personal, you'll hear that, too.

To hear someone talk about their life - you get to know the way their eyes moisten up, how big the smile is or how comfortable their body language is while talking to someone.

I'm just basically spillin' out my emotions to the world. 'Cause rap is about emotion. And I want you to feel what I'm feelin', 'cause that's what it's all about.

I include myself in the posters because I feel like it forms a more intimate relationship between the artist and the person passing by. And it's important to include some vulnerability and use fears and rejections and various aspects from my own life so people look at my work as more than greeting card fodder.

This is my truth, tell me yours.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

My work is about the establishment of trust. For someone to share their authenticity with me is a soul-to-soul thing. It's not a lens-to-soul thing.

I've never been one for keeping a journal, so my songs were my journals. They allowed me to express my feelings and let people know what was going on with me. I knew that somebody would relate.

Sometimes it's hard to open up about your personal life, your relationship because you always want the music to be in the forefront. You want the music to be the biggest carrier of everything that you represent.

I need to let people know who I am and instead of just trying to make great records, just be honest and make it more personal and make it more passionate, to make records with emotion and not be afraid to express that.

When I perform, it's very personal. I'm sharing things I like, inviting the audience into my room.

With music, you're really showing someone a piece of your soul. You're saying, 'This is mine. I wrote this, I made this, I'm performing this. This is how I'm presenting it to you.' There's something really scary about that, but there's also something next-worldly about it, too.

I put my emotions in my music and I want people to relate to that.

I don't think I always look in people's faces, like, as - I think especially when I'm doing my more intimate songs that are quite personal, I always feel it's a bit accusing if I stare in someone's face when I singing quite a personal lyric.

I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I share what I say, and if listeners get it, they get it. And I never underestimate the audience's ability to feel me.

Communication is so much better when people are vulnerable.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I'm giving you myself in the music. There's where the connection comes from; you can't Twitter that.

Sometimes I would write something that was so private, people would say, 'Make it more universal.' I never liked that idea. I always thought the more personal a song was, the more people would want to hear it.

Some people are uncomfortable saying what they feel.

I always found that the closer I got to who I really am, on stage, the more they responded to it.

You know you're in love when you're more yourself than you ever imagined possible.

I found in my writing that I could express emotions that, as an everyday person, I have no interest in expressing: these strange things that girls talk about called feelings.

I didn't think I was helping other people. But I think that comes hand in hand with trying to be able to connect with people, and if you make things too personal, then it's harder for people to relate to you. Otherwise, it's just them listening to you read your diary.