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I started singing because it was a natural evolution in hip-hop to me. Without Prince, I wouldn't have embraced that. I wouldn't have been able to embrace me.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I feel like we haven't dealt with the ghosts of America's past, and the way to deal with it is to confront it, so every time people see me, I want them to be reminded and to confront that ghost.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I thought the suit was something that would suit me.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I am, always have been, and always will be proud of my Nigerian heritage.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I reached rock bottom halfway through college. And it was - because of all the pressure that I think we're talking about right now - the pressure to learn how to budget, the pressure to really abandon everything that you ever learned. You don't have a comfort zone anymore. You don't have your neighborhood. You don't have your family with you.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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In Brooklyn, all the kids call me the 'Willy Wonka of the Hood.'
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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In music, I wanted to make sure I was innovating.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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If I'm shopping at the Gap or Old Navy, I'm saying that I'm an ordinary person: I don't want to be seen; I don't want to stand out. That's a statement. If I'm wearing a leather jacket, there's something about me that's kind of a rebel. So everybody says something, whether they want to or not.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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When I was a boy, I was sagging my pants like everyone else. Some boys become men and continue to sag their pants because that's their form of rebellion.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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Everything you touch touches you.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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My style is not specific to the antebellum South, but it's heavily inspired by the Jim Crow era.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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For me, I wear a suit because I need to remember what's happened before me.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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The affinity towards suits was a functional thing for me early on because I was thrifting at secondhand shops, and it was also initially a way of grieving - my father had passed, and he used to wear suits all the time.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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You love who you love. I happen to just love a lot of women.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I've gone down several paths. I started school as an engineer, but underneath it all, I knew I wanted to use instruments, not build them.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I think it's the job of the artist to reflect the times and also reflect his or her views of the world.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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Does Martin Luther King really want his birthday commercialized?
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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Like most people, I had several awakenings.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I'm the guy on the corner that is slightly peculiar but fun and funky.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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When I brought home a 98 percent on a test, my father would say, 'Ah, ah, where are the other two points? Go and get them, then bring them back.' My father and Nigerian culture has always stood for excellence.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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I think a lot of people try to be someone else, and Young Thug really is who he is. I love his melodies, how he dresses, how he carries himself.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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Swanky means classy and funky.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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It's better to do your purpose imperfectly than to do someone else's purpose perfectly.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
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My father raised me to build computers, hardware. Literally, as an 8 year old, I had a soldering iron and circuit boards, and this was in neighbourhoods that wouldn't have a whole lot of money or anything. And I figured out ways to just hustle.
Jidenna Theodore Mobisson
