A Quote by Jonas Carpignano

When I was growing up, hip-hop music existed as American thing. If you listened to it you were listening to an American subculture, whereas now you're just listening to pop music that everyone shares. I think that's big.
A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity.
You start learning English in fifth grade. I was 12. But even before then I was listening to American music. My neighbor was a really big hip-hop fan, so he taught me everything around hip-hop.
Socially, hip-hop has done more for racial camaraderie in this country than any one thing. 'Cause guys like me, my kids - everyone under 45 either grew up loving hip-hop or hating hip-hop, but everyone under 45 grew up very aware of hip-hop. So when you're a white kid and you're listening to this music and you're being exposed to it every day on MTV, black people become less frightening. This is just a reality. What hip-hop has done bringing people together is enormous.
As a kid growing up in a lower-class neighbourhood, where everyone around me was listening to hip hop, what was I doing listening to new wave, and why was that my favourite music? I don't know why, but it just spoke to me.
Growing up in a house where there was a lot of different musical influences - my mom listens to soul stuff and Top 40, my sisters would listen to hip-hop - and the church, I grew up listening to a lot of gospel stuff. So I think that plays a role in how I make music now because my music has a lot of range. I don't just do one thing.
Before hip-hop existed, we were listening to soul songs from the '70s. I grew up with Motown, Elton John, and the Beatles. To me, that's good music.
I grew up watching American films, listening to American music, and it's a big contribution to the rest of the world. I mean, American jazz, for me, is the best thing culturally that America has produced.
I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, because that was new music for me. I really hadn't been up on them. I mean, I'd heard of them, but I wasn't up on their music. And I kept listening to Radiohead, and I was like, Man, I want to make hip-hop that feels like Radiohead. I want to make hip-hop that can use guitars and soul and jazz and just fuse it all together.
I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.
I grew up listening to pop; I grew up listening to '60s pop music, the Beatles, the Monkees, Herman's Hermits and all that stuff. So I had a very strong background of listening to great pop music.
All the music I listened to in high school that I loved and that moved me wasn't the same music other kids were listening to in school. I got into punk rock and new wave, then dub and hip-hop.
When I was young, we were quite strongly discouraged from listening to pop music. It was an uncomfortable thing, pop music; I think my parents felt threatened by it. They were always happy when they were listening to Mozart, so if your parents are happy, then you're happy.
As a kid, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Etta James and hip-hop as well as music my parents were listening to, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.
For a long time I wasn't actually listening to pop. But when I got back into electronic and hip-hop stuff, I rediscovered my passion for pop music.
I think the average country music fan grew up the same exact way that all the artists did, listening to hip-hop and country and R&B and pop and whatever it may be.
But I feel like I developed my own love for hip-hop and rap music by myself. Just growing up and hearing new things. As you grow up, you begin to listen to new music that this kid is listening to, then you begin to like your own music, and start discovering it yourself.
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