Jidenna Theodore Mobisson Quotes
-
My style is not specific to the antebellum South, but it's heavily inspired by the Jim Crow era.
-
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.
-
I believe what Wondaland is doing is creating depth.
-
Even if the production doesn't feel African, the vocal delivery - singing through your nose. Specifically, Highlife music from Nigeria. That was the first music I ever heard as a child. So singing through my nose is something I do often, and that's directly rooted in my heritage.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Most of the suits I try to wear are bespoke.
-
You love who you love. I happen to just love a lot of women.
-
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.
-
All across this world, especially within the African diaspora, we feel like there is a constant devaluing of our culture and our livelihood.
-
Everything you touch touches you.
-
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.
-
In music, I wanted to make sure I was innovating.
-
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.
-
Swanky means classy and funky.
-
For me, I wear a suit because I need to remember what's happened before me.
-
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.
-
It's better to do your purpose imperfectly than to do someone else's purpose perfectly.
-
Like most people, I had several awakenings.
-
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.
-
Does Martin Luther King really want his birthday commercialized?
-
I think it's the job of the artist to reflect the times and also reflect his or her views of the world.
-
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.
-
I'm the guy on the corner that is slightly peculiar but fun and funky.