Artist Journey Quotes

I had never released any music until 'Bruises' came out when I was 20.

A lot of people think I was an overnight success, but I was an opening act for three or four years, and then I signed my contract with EMI. Then it kind of blew up overnight.

To be honest with you, I don't have one track that I consider better than the next because all I'm trying to do is still grow as an artist. I got way better since the early nineties, as far as putting words together. My best energy probably was the '90s, because I was new.

Since I was 17, I had been just making records and promoting them.

My first album didn't come out until I was 26.

With 'Hip-Hop Saved My Life,' I attempted to make 'Kick, Push,' but for rappers. To give a real basic play-by-play of the life of a rapper before he makes it - if he ever makes it, because you can get stuck in that and be trying to make it for the rest of your life.

It was almost two years after I left Capital that I put out the first one on Chrysalis and that was really instructive because it was no better in particular than any other record I'd done.

I started recording in '67. In the first part of '68, my first single was 'Backup Train.' That was success to a degree. Four years have passed by since then, and I have managed to come up with a few measly sellers.

I was putting songs on Facebook and YouTube just for my friends. When one got over 100 plays, I would do a dance. The first time someone that I didn't know commented, it was a dream come true. A year and a half later, I played 'Fallon.'

I did three club tours before I started playing concert halls, and the clubs were half full the first time around.

When I got my first email from a record label, I decided I didn't want to go in with just one song, so I sat down and kept on writing.

I started my entire journey as an indie artist. Ownership has its benefits and it's just about putting in the work. I'm just working.

It's taken a long time but eventually when I had the songs in place and demos right and I found myself a manager, that's when everything started happening quickly but I think that's always the way it is.

I had immediate success in the sense that I sold something right off the bat. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake and it really wasn't. I have drawers full of - or I did have - drawers full of rejection slips.

I was doing these music videos online for a couple years, and they'd be doing well to varying degrees. And I released an album, and with the album, I released three new music videos, and one of them was featured on Jezebel.

A lot of people may know me for my music now. It took me almost 14 years to get where I am, and it was really hard.

Back in 1978, when I was still in high school, I went to see a Broadway show, 'Paul Robeson,' starring James Earl Jones. It was all about Robeson's journey as a human being, an artist, a champion of civil rights. Had I not seen the play, I might not have known who Robeson was. I was certainly never taught about him in school.

By the time my first album was out, I had been out in Jamaica three or four years, but I had hits out at that time that were bona fide hits.

We're trying to give back to artists of colour and make the journey for them a little easier.

For me, having walked through Times Square so many times as a broke and starving artist, as a TV star, and now having other hopes and dreams, it just represents possibility and the moment of full circle.

'Make You Miss Me' is an important song to me. Having it go No. 1 as the fifth single off of my first record is the cherry on top of a chapter in my life I'll never forget.

I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.

I was the kid jamming out to the songs on the radio, and now there's hopefully kids out there jamming out to my music.

I didn't know how well my first album had done; it was enough to get me to do the second album, which was a continuation of the music I'd worked on and perfected.

My first album done what it had to do. It introduced me.