A lot of people considered my career as an artist largely over. Two albums got shelved. But I've made music since I was a little kid, and for the majority of that time, I wasn't paid for it. So I will always be making it.
My focus is to try to appreciate the present moment more and more and more.
I take a lot of pride in my songs.
It's easier to make art for a society at a certain point in time with an understanding of what's going on.
Honestly, I don't go to clubs very often.
I've always had an eclectic taste in music. But what I try to do is combine these things in ways that others would never think of, like putting Bun B on an Elton John song.
I try to tell the truth in my lyrics; write good melodies and make hard beats. So, basically, I just combine hip-hop with melody. That's how I classify myself.
I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning.
I wanted to be the most famous. And it wasn't until I hung out with Justin Bieber that the whole thing got demystified. The mystique of it was gone.
I consider myself a lyrics guy.
When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want.
My songs are all personal.
I'm kind of like a rapper trapped in a singer's body.
I looked at myself and realized I had a lot of boundaries up about what I would talk about, what was private for me and what wasn't. I decided to just get rid of them. It was quite liberating.
I enjoyed a cartoon show called 'Recess' throughout my high school career. The target audience for that show was 8-11 years old.
I have a very wide spectrum of stuff that I grew up listening to.
It took me a long time to stumble upon a sound, and I figured out I wanted to kinda sing rapper's lyrics.
It's just about being honest. I listen to a lot of stuff that's out there, some of which I wrote, and I'm like, 'Where is that? Where's the honesty?' So that's what I want to get to in my music now.
I've remixed lots of other people's songs, from Adele to Electric Light Orchestra to Beyonce, so when my record label said, 'Why don't you give 'Ibiza' to someone to remix?' I said, 'Sure,' because I like the idea of people reimagining art and making something new out of it.
I have my dream job. I get paid to make music.
How can a song all about struggling with the afterglow of fame thrust someone into fame? How can a lyric like, 'I'm just a singer who already blew his shot,' give a singer another shot? I don't know... but it's funny.
I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn't love myself enough. But now I realize that when you're an artist, you're making the music that's in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason.
If they want to party and do all the things I say brought me sadness in my song, with my song as the soundtrack... so be it.
Nothing means more to me than making the best music and me getting better as a writer and producer... I want you to know I work really hard. The bar is really high.
People like me for my songwriting and production, not my singing.
I realized I could do music for the sake of music, not the other things that come with it. That was a major shift.
I was a paperboy first, then I worked at a movie theater. But I was a caddie at a golf club, which I didn't like. The people were so bougie and racist at times.
If my career was a basketball season, I'm in the pre-season still. I'm not blowing everybody out by 40 - there's so much work to be done, and there's no time to really sit and look back and be proud of what I've done yet, because it's the pre-season still.
I was trying to maintain a facade of infallibility, which is exhausting. Like, I used to wear tons of makeup because I had bad skin. I couldn't go out in public without makeup on.
I love the fact that I don't have a real job!
I've only had success when I'm not trying to. It's that weird thing where if you're trying to impress a girl, you're not going to impress her. But if you aren't trying to impress a girl, you'll probably impress her because you're not trying.
It's not the job of the art to accommodate me and make me more money, make me more famous and get me more girls.
I was really lucky to grow up in an extremely diverse neighborhood.
I think of the pop music that I've made in the past and hear on the radio as candy bars. And I was really good at making candy bars.
I had an initial wave of popularity that, in time, crashed, and I slowly became less popular and less successful, and I had to figure out who I was without those things.
I really look up to Louis C.K. I think he's great. And obviously he's very popular, more popular than me. Years ago, I was thinking, naively, it would be great to be that popular. And then I thought about it and then I realized that, with his money and his level of notoriety, he has all of the same emotions that I do.
I just sing over hip-hop beats, you know. That's what I've been doing. That's what I started in '09 in my dorm room.
I grew up making music in my mum's basement, and I used to tell her I was going down there to work, and she'd say, 'That's not work. Go get a real job!' It took me signing a record deal to change her opinion!
My favorite color is jungle green. At least, that's what it said on the side of my favorite crayon in first grade. I don't know if it's an official color.
Detroit is in my music consciously and subconsciously.
Just be yourself and be upfront about your expectations and desires. Don't be ambiguous and play hard to get. It doesn't work. You'll end up in the friend zone.
I realized that a lot of people in my family had sacrificed for me to have the opportunity to go to a place like Duke. I owed it to them to finish. I graduated with a 3.6.
I remember I wanted to be an athlete. I wanted to be in the NFL or NBA or something, and I don't think I dreamed of being a benchwarmer. I'm sure I wanted to be the best. But I didn't really ever think I was going to be a famous musician.
In my short career, I tend not to repeat myself. I have no interest in redoing something. Sometimes that makes people angry, and maybe it's not the best thing for me commercially. But it's the best thing for me artistically, and it's the best thing for my heart.
It's always hard for an artist from the U.K. to break into the United States. It's especially harder for a rapper because hip-hop is such an American art form.
If a song about blowing your shot becomes popular, that's really funny.
I'll read on Twitter, 'Do you still do music?' Music is all I do, all day.
I like regular girls.
Some of my early musical memories are attached to grunge.
