I only get involved with projects as a producer if I feel creatively inspired.
I know it's hard for people to imagine a time when 'Hamilton' wasn't 'Hamilton,' but for years, it was just this little thing that I was telling people about that didn't make any sense to anybody as I was describing it. But I loved it.
I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
That's the difference between the serious artist and the craftsman--the craftsman can take material and because of his abilities do a professional job of it. The serious artist, like Proust, is like an object caught by a wave and swept to shore. He's obsessed by his material; it's like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.
People like Prince don't have to care about anything, but they care because they want music for the future to be great.
When I got into art school, I thought it was paradise. I wanted to be an artist so much that I was really driven and nothing could stop me.
I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.
A secondhand wardrobe hand clothes doesn't make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, or HIV. I hate to say it - none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay doesn't make one witty... the only thing that makes one an artist is making art.
I never really consider myself as a great artist. I just always like to draw.
I love working in New York theater.
I took no money to make art, but my woman backed me up on it and I want my children to see their father happy.
I never wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a book illustrator. I used to hurry home from school and draw.
I never worked at painting as if it were a job; it was always out of interest or for fun, a desire to try something.
It's hard to predict and to say what goes on inside the minds of an artist, but that's what makes them an artist. That sense of creativity. That thing that makes them tick is probably the very thing that pushes them to the extremes that sometimes can cause, you know, fatalities and things that, you know, that end up not being good.
I will never stop making music.
I was always involved in art and when I went under contract at Warner Bros. at 18, it afforded me the possibility of never having to stop painting, never having to stop taking photographs and so on, and to actually live a cultural life.
I've never really cared if I was famous for my music. It was just something I had to do.
I just wanted to be an artist. I didn't care how or what; I just wanted to express my artistic integrity, and I wanted the world to have a vision of what I was seeing in my mind.
I don't think about how much business my films will make.
It's painful to consider anything but writing.
When I graduated, I was going to go to school for law, but had such an affinity for hip-hop. It was like walking into a casino and I decided to bet everything on hip-hop, and I hit! My hit wasn't just a hit for me, it was a hit for everyone in this culture.
I don't sell millions of records. As a matter of fact, I'm not even interested in selling millions of records. I enjoy MCing. I make a decent amount of money. I can feed my kids. I keep a roof over my head. I don't have to sell a million records to maintain my lifestyle.
Writing music is my one and only passion and joy.
My artistry is my baby.
