I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs - that's where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that's very cool.
I'm not a fan of anybody music who I feel like a sucka. I don't listen to you. They play you in the club, you can have the #1 jam, but if I know your character, how can I listen to your music?
U2 - that's a band that never should have existed. There's no life experience in any of their songs.
The bottom line is fans just want to hear a good song. Some people will look underneath to see who wrote it, but they just want to hear a good song. And if they don't hear it, they're not going to buy it just because you wrote it.
When you are a rapper, there's always hesitation in taking on certain roles because of creditability, but Rza is one of those guys who doesn't worry about what people will say. He's a talented guy and can dive into anything.
When I first broke out, everyone was like, 'OK, so is this a joke?' They had to wait until I sold out shows before newspapers started writing about it.
You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.
I'm a real rapper.
I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don't know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.
It's important for country fans to know that I'm not just trying to come in and take their money for a CD.
I don't have a manager who's secretly on Interscope. I'm the complete opposite of an industry plant.
At the end of the day, when people say, 'Oh, she's an industry plant,' I'm like, 'No, I just have representation, like every single other artist you listen to.' I'm not the first person to get a manager.
A lot of people, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and a lot of people have written for other people, and of course Bruno Mars. So I think it's a great way to break into the industry and show people what you can do and show them your talent and people tend to listen a little differently to your own music as an artist, when you've proven yourself as a good songwriter for other artists.
In the UK and the US especially you've got a lot of throwaway artists who have their 40 million dancers and they do their show. There's many artists who would not do a live show because they know they can't.
There's a lot of artists out there who are pretty big but don't write their songs, they just have a lifestyle brand. These are all things that I think are a great enemy to music.
I had T-Pain on one of my singles before anyone really knew of him. I was the first one to put that to life of having T-Pain on the hook.
You can usually tell when people aren't being authentic, but that goes for every artist, not just white artists.
Listen, if you a comedian, and you try to jump in the rap lane, it's not gonna work out the way you think it's gonna work out. Just cause you got 4 million followers, 5 million followers, them people follow you 'cause you a comedian. So, once you try to rap they are not going to take you serious.
If you're an artist who's built on marketing and hype then most likely I won't listen to you.
I've always had such a high level of respect for Taylor Swift because she writes all of her music.
I completely understand why labels would be a little bit hesitant to sign somebody coming off of a television show, in their first glance.
That's part of it: You can't be a country singer-songwriter if you've never had an official heartbreak.
I think some people have this thing where just because you do singles that means you're not a real artist. It's like hold on a minute - I'm selling millions of records here and been streamed billions of times... How can I not be taken as a real artist just because these songs are singles?
I don't want to just sell out shows to young girls who like my movie franchise. I want to sell tickets because people respect me.
It's not easy to go from reality TV to being taken seriously as an artist, so I don't think I'll be doing reality TV again because of that.
