Diverse influences Quotes

My dad's from Zimbabwe, and my mom is Danish, Irish, and Norwegian, so I have influences from a lot of different places.

Prince, Bootsy Collins, Earth Wind & Fire and Parliament all had albums that sound different. I wanted to show, as a hip-hop producer, I'm one of those that can do anything, because I was raised on so much music aside from rap and hip-hop.

I'm trying to figure out what I can do creatively. It's about trying to find new things and trying to figure out voices and borrowing from things and learning as much as possible so that I have an archive of things to borrow from.

Influences come from everywhere. I don't really feel like I had too many influences for the first record because I grew up listening to music in church, and that was pretty much it. I didn't really grow up listening to AC/DC and all those bands.

The electro scene is all over the clubs now: groups like Duck Sauce, Empire of the Sun, even MGMT. But I get inspiration from everywhere. I'll go to the gym and put on old albums - Guns N' Roses or old Jay-Z.

You can really bring so much more to rock'n'roll. Rock'n'roll is the most accepting, is the most fertile ground for creating hybrid forms of music and hybrid forms of show, if you draw from many, many different wells. It's just unfortunate so many rock'n'roll stars only bother to learn how to play like Led Zeppelin and/or the Rolling Stones and that's what you get, disc after disc and show after show.

I love that Euro-pop dance music, but with girl power. I also listen to Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan. I have a Beatles song tattooed on my foot. I'm all over the place.

I'm universal. As much as I can get out a 'Firework' with Katy, I can get a 'Lil Freak' out with Usher. Or a 'Lay It Down' with Lloyd. I can get Caribbean as I did on 'Rio,' then go from there to working with No Doubt.

In the '90s, it was cool to just like R&B. But I liked Nirvana and stuff, too.

My influences are Alice in Chains and Elton John.

I found college useful for a lot of other reasons. It exposed me to a great many influences I wouldn't otherwise have encountered, and gave me a lot of time with some very intelligent people whose thoughts are still with me.

I was interested in both Western and Indian classical music.

I like to piece together different guitarists, unlikely bedfellows. You have Jonny Greenwood playing next to Nile Rodgers on the same track, so it becomes like an orchestra of sounds.

For me, influences really come from everywhere: literature, comics, movies, anime, Internet, science, real-life situations. In fact, I think that writing is just about living.

I love working with different artist with different styles and different producers with different sounds, creativity is everything.

I really like a lot of different music, and it's taken a while to make them all work together as a unit.

I don't want to make niche-oriented music.

I never started out as an R&B singer. I grew up on all types of music - jazz, rock, pop, country, folk - and I wanted to bring that to my stage.

I never set out to be part of a genre, because I listen to all types of music.

I've grown up with jazz - the Joe Hendersons, Oliver Nelsons, Miles Davis and stuff - but I was also listening to, like, Slipknot, Korn, and Rage Against the Machine. There was all of that weaved - interweaved - in there, and being from L.A., you tend to know your musical history.

I come from a short fiction background, and my mom is a poet, so I've always read poetry; I've always had a lot of different influences both linguistically and musically.

I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.

Consequently, I get inspiration from all over the place. But it's not like a calculated thing on my part, or a way that I see myself, you know? I'm just interested in things that move me, and I don't care where they come from. In fact, I'm interested if they come from a place I wouldn't expect, or would seem foreign to me on some level.

I just have certain interests in different things, and they inspire me to write. I would encourage aspiring artists or MCs or rappers to be able to grab from many different sources to create your story.

Alex [Da Kid] does have diversity, not just in what he produces, but what he hears. He has this knack for finding talented people.