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I read the Steve Jobs book, and that kind of changed everything. I've been, like, an Apple geek my whole life and have always seen him as a hero. But reading the book, and learning about how he built the company, and maintaining that corporate culture and all that, I think that influenced me a lot.
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I've gone on in front of a crowd of 10 people and 7,000 people.
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'Runaround Sue' was a big record for me, as well as the music video for it.
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I grew up in Oakland and Berkeley, California.
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I'm on Tumblr all the time.
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When you're around somebody like E-40, all you can do is watch and learn, and soak up game.
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My mom would always play me a lot of late-'50s, late-'60s rock.
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Toronto is amazing, it's one of my favourite cities to visit. Toronto and Montreal are just super dope places.
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London, from the architecture to the culture to the fashion to the accents, feels like it's a special place.
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My whole career has been from scratch, so I never took it for granted that people care and support what I do.
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I think if you're constantly reinvesting into your content and giving the fans stuff, then you can continue to tour. You can continue to sell the merch and monetize the popularity of the brand.
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I know what it feels like to walk out in front of a sold-out crowd of a thousand people that are there for you, and how good that feels, but as an opener, you just have to train yourself to think that it's going to be harder.
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Music isn't selling like it used to, but the one thing you can't steal or download is a live show experience or a T-shirt.
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It's important to push yourself to get better at your craft - whatever that is. It's important to grow and evolve with each project.
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You have an entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that music is something that you can download for free.
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I think, back in the day, when I was first starting to make music, all I wanted to do was to get a record deal.
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If you think about rap and how it has become so much easier to record music and release it, and you think about everyone in the world being a 'rapper' these days, it's so much easier. But it's still as hard as ever to break through and truly be successful in this industry.
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I think when you're telling a story from inside of you that's genuine, people connect with it.
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I see myself as a hip-hop artist, but I never wanted to make music for a specifically white audience. That's not what I grew up around.
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If you push yourself to stay hungry, you're always working towards at least taking steps forward. If you're taking steps forward, then you're making progress.
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I don't know if most people know it or not, but I produce, like, 95% of my own stuff.
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In anything I do I try to stay true to myself because I think that's what matters most, and then the challenge is getting all these different sides of my personality to fit together in one box. It isn't an easy task. But that's basically what the end result represents.
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I think it's natural for a creative to be sensitive. If I'm in the studio and I write something, I think it's the greatest thing in the world; it's like my baby. I just made something out of thin air that exists now in a tangible form. It's the biggest thrill in my life.
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In a sense, touring is crazy. You go city to city playing the show over and over again. But there's something magic about being in front of people, so it's not like going through the motions every night. It's a different experience.