Lyrical Complexity Quotes

My approach to writing rhymes went hand in hand with the music. I'd try to make different rhythms with my rhymes on the track by tripping up patterns, using multi-syllable words, different syncopations. I'd try to be like a different instrument.

Often the simplest song is the hardest to write.

Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven't been made easier technically.

Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar sounds decades older than he is, and it's not necessarily the wear and tear that comes from a rough life; instead, his world-weariness seems to result from years of soul-searching.

When I hear somebody like Hayes Carll write a song that's touching and poignant and sad and funny all at the same time, it motivates me to step my game up and try to figure out a way to get more different emotions into one line or one song.

Originally I had a block about appearing in a musical. I went to a voice teacher for a while, but that did no good. My range is about one and a half notes. I ended up talking the musical numbers, which was revolutionary at the time. The lyrics are extremely intricate. They move along like a precisely acted scene. If you miss a word - heaven help you - the orchestra rattles past like an express train, and you've got to run like the devil to catch up.

We've been branded 'the thinking man's hip-hop.' So the music's got to have some level of maturity.

I think it's good if a song has more than one meaning. Maybe that kind of song can reach far more people.

Our first radio single, 'The Stage,' was eight-and-a-half minutes long. Unabashedly, we wanted to push the limits musically, lyrically, and instrumentation-wise.

The phrase 'teen hottie' literally makes me want to throw up. I'm a pop princess at heart. Pop is about distilling what you want to say and making it easy. And the way I write isn't about making things easy. It's a weird juxtaposition.

There are no limitations with a song. To me a song is a little piece of art. It can be whatever you like it to be. You can write the simplest song, and that's lovely, or you can just write a song that is abstract art.

My favorite song is Eminem's 'Rap God.' That joint is just incredible, It's six-and-a-half minutes of him just crushing the whole game. It's so different from what I hear if I listen to the radio.

I don't use simple words. I make games and puzzles with my songs.

The lyrics aren't simple, either. They're extremely difficult because I'm trying to say complicated things in as few words as possible.

It's really hard to find a lot of things that rhyme with Michael Diamond.

I'm far more interested in putting a little more meat into the lyrics than some people are.

Back in the day, rappers were 'bump bump bump ba bump ba bump.' They was rhyming like that, but I was like, 'bababa bump bump babum ba babump bababa bump.'

There is no pop category, let alone any infinitely gene-sliced genre name, to contain the lead in Rihanna's voice in 'Needed Me.'

There's more to hip-hop than just trying to make everything rhyme, and you find out in life that everything don't rhyme. The music they're cutting is musically fantastic.

It was a period when they used to read into our lyrics a lot, used to think there was more in them than there was.

Rap - so many words, so little said.

Everybody likes to listen to a song because it's fun, and nobody wants to sit around and listen to 'I-really-have-to-analyze-these-lyrics' songs all the time.

I write in a mathematical manner. For some of my songs, I rhyme every syllable. It's a science.

I put a lot of work into my lyrics. Not all my stuff is meant to be scrutinized, though.