Jose Feliciano Quotes

I'm not going to be able to play it like somebody else.

My style is all to myself.

If I'm paying money to come to see you, you shouldn't look like everybody else in the crowd.

A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It's an individual-feel thing, you know?

The most important thing for me as an artist is having an identity.

I enjoy punk, the attitude as well as the music, but I don't feel like I have to be a carbon copy of it and invite all this controversy just to be punk rock.

Music should not be a contest, it should be an individual thing that each band is putting out from within themselves.

In the performance sense, I find that interpretation is improvisatory in nature. You can go anywhere with an interpretation on any given day.

Don't try to be just like some other singer hitting it big - find your own style and be honest in your performances. And never underestimate your audience.

I always have to just be myself. Anything else, I'm not happy, and it comes out musically.

My problem is not to reinforce or destroy any ideas anyone might have about me, how I do what I do, what my intentions are, the way that I do it. My only job as far as I can see is to do the music that I want to do. All those other things are completely out of my control.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

The way that I sing, what I sing about, what I wear, who I am, this is me. I was born this way.

Basically I just had to say, 'Screw everyone around me - from now on I'm just gonna play what I think is important to me and our music.' So I gave the big finger to all the current trends in technical wizardry, and just went off and did what I felt was best for the songs.

I'm 100 percent original, and that's what got me here. My rap music is more understandable, slower. It tells a story. You can write a book on each of my thoughts.

You can't write ... on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself.

I think it's really important to make things your own in your voice. I started when I was 23, and in the beginning of my career, there was this expectation of a young designer being edgier, cooler, more downtown. But I was never that person.

No matter what I put out, no matter what genre - because I feel like I'm going to experiment with everything - I hope people will see that it's true to me, that it's honest, and nobody ever thinks that I'm inauthentic.

Art is a personal act of courage.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

I only do what I do. For me, it is a craft. It's got to be my own thing - otherwise, I would never be successful. I could easily go to the archives and pull 1987 or 1991 collection by Calvin Klein. But when you look in there, you realize that it was never about one piece. It was about the collections as bodies of work.

I ... started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out.

The fact is that everyone at the labels wants to do what everyone else is doing. You have to look like her; you have to be like her; you have to sing like her, and no one can express themselves. I look at Rihanna and I am so proud of her. She speaks loudly! You have to stand up and clap. She expresses herself through fashion. She actually can sing. And her songs mean something, even to me, you know?

Finally and most important of all, authenticity means that you must do what you do the way you do it and allow everyone else the same courtesy. There was a time I wanted to be like every famous writer that ever lived. I tried to copy styles, reframe information, use similar artwork. I almost drove myself crazy! Now I just do what I do. I have mentors. There are people whose work I admire, but I write the way I write. I eat the way I eat. I dress the way I dress. I can't believe that God made us each so unique only to have us do everything the same way.

There's nothing interesting about looking perfect—you lose the point. You want what you're wearing to say something about you, about who you are.