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I didn't really experience any hardship like people tend to think of when they hear the words 'Detroit, Michigan.' I think Big Sean is a much better ambassador for the city.
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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.
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I take a lot of pride in my songs.
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You need to stop looking outside and look inside - and it's such a good feeling. A feeling of love and that everything is going to be OK, and all you have to do is nothing.
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All my music is autobiographical, and that's the reason why people like my music. They know when I'm saying something on a song, I mean it. It comes from a real place and captures the realness in my life.
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When I was a kid, my parents were always like, 'Money doesn't buy happiness.' I thought, 'You just didn't make enough money.' I had to go find it out for myself.
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I struggled with depression when I was in high school, and I remember thinking that if I got a record deal and got a hit song, that it would solve all those problems for me.
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Some of my early musical memories are attached to grunge.
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It's like, we all grow up thinking it would be so nice to have hundreds of people falling over themselves trying to grab us, telling us we're great, that they love us.
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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.
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When I started picking out music for myself, I was a hip-hop kid. DMX, The Roots, Outkast, people like that.
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When I recorded 'Cooler Than Me', I had been singing for like, three months at the most. I was just a producer experimenting with my voice on tracks, and now I'm, like, a really good singer in a legit way.
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I wanted to see if I could be happy without a lot of stuff. And what I found out was, yeah, I really could.
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I remember with my first album, I was so scared of messing it up, of blowing the opportunity, that I blew it.
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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.
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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.
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That's why I make mixtapes. That's why I work with Don Cannon; that's why i work with Big Sean. Even though I don't rap, I got love and acceptance in that community, and that's something that I really take seriously and hold close to my heart.
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I think it should be socially acceptable for men to like 'You're Beautiful' by James Blunt.
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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.
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Detroit is in my music consciously and subconsciously.
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I co-produced 'Boyfriend' by Justin Bieber and worked on Labrinth's album, so I've been keeping busy.
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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.
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It's important to me that my songs actually make sense. So often, I turn on the radio, and I have no idea what the people are singing about. It may sound good, but when you listen, they're just saying words that rhyme. It's another song about nothing.
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I think I was blessed with this talent for a reason. No one told me how to write a song, but I'm just good at it, you know. There are a lot of other things in my life that I'm not so good at, but writing a song is not one of them.