Innovative Artist Quotes

I always paid attention to Lil Wayne - close attention. He's my idol. He's still my idol.

Kendrick Lamar is the real deal. He's a real artist, and he's gonna be here for awhile because this guy is seriously talented.

Michael Jackson, he used to chase relevancy all the time. He always wanted to go a little bigger and better and keep that audience. There was never a point where Michael was going to feel like, 'I've got to play the Nokia, and that's all I'm going to pull in is the Nokia.' That would not have been acceptable.

In my creative life, David Bowie is definitely an enormous influence on me, being one of rock's greatest shapeshifters.

I'm trying to do what Eddie Murphy did for his generation. You have to show people, 'I'm different. I'm not just a comedian.' I'm trying to become a rock star.

Bowie is probably my favorite all-around songwriter and performer and personality. His ability to change over the years is such an inspiration. I love 'Young Americans' and 'Fame.'

RZA is one of the most unique individuals and rap artists that I have worked with.

Bowie has been in my mind as someone who disappeared from the public for a long time and then emerged. A strange, exotic creature - he seems to inherit a tradition of enigma and exclusiveness.

Dizzee's just my childhood hero. He's definitely the inspiration. He's got himself to a very good place. He's defied the expectations of what British black urban music was like. He was the first person who made the rest of Britain realise it wasn't just a one-album-type situation. You've got to take your hat off to somebody like that.

I'm not the first guy to make a record or to make hip-hop, but I did it differently.

Lou Reed's spirit and the way he did things was so important. Him and his music mean so much to me as the years go by.

I think Kanye West is brilliant at what he does: he's got a different live show, different merch for every tour, different vibes, and he just puts out great records.

Rick Rubin is super intriguing to me because he has become this god producer in completely drastically different genres, which very few people have done.

I'm mostly concentrating now on continuing to make history in Hip-Hop, making everybody proud of me, I'm not just a rapper now, I'm in history now.

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse.

David Bowie emerged as a rock star in the late '60s. And as Ken Tucker wrote, "In the face of the hippy era's sincerity, intimacy and generosity, Bowie presented irony, distance and self-absorption. His song 'Changes' announced the arrival of a new counterculture," unquote.

Bob Dylan may be the Charlie Chaplin of rock n' roll. Both men are regarded as geniuses by their entire audience. Both were proclaimed revolutionaries for their early work and subjected to exhaustive attack when later works were thought to be inferior. Both developed their art without so much as a nodding glance toward their peers.

David Bowie worked with Brian Eno and dressed up in extraordinary clothes, but he was also a brilliant songwriter who captured the thoughts of a generation. He was hugely successful, without compromise.

I want to say that Beck is incredible. He is an art machine.

I met David Bowie when I was 14, and he became a hero to me - because he was an artist, and because he was a genius who had the time to be kind. I'd never met such an extraordinary artist before, and I haven't since - the world will be a greyer place without him.

Move over Rover, and let Jimi take over.

Prince inspired me. He changed my life. I will miss him greatly.

I don't talk about Amy Winehouse as a 'singer.' She's a pioneer. I listened to her endlessly when I started writing.

I'm building my fan base around the fact that here's someone who does things a little differently, who brings other musical influences into country music, and you never really know what she's going to do next.

Gonjasufi may sound at first like a rambling hip-hop crackpot, but there's more to the California rapper and singer than mere eccentricity: What appears messy and thrown together is anything but.