As an artist, as a brand, as a rapper, as a musician, you know you got a window and a lot of people, even an athlete; they don't have no exit strategy. It's just living in the false reality that it's going to be like this forever.
I got an album concept called 'Exit Strategy,' that might be one of my last ones. It's a term they use in business when you build companies. You create an exit strategy as you make a company. You don't wait till you're five years in it; you create a exit strategy as you make the company.
You live in an apartment in New York, and you think all the time about like, 'I don't even know who's living above me.' There are all these anonymous people in that window or that window or that window, and everybody has their own interesting life that I know nothing about.
Lots of people are going to sell clothes online. But not a lot of people have built a brand, a living, breathing brand that people feel like they're part of.
Victory means exit strategy. And it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.
You don't have to look like an Under Armour mannequin to be an athlete. A lot of people probably think I'm not athletic or don't even try to work out or whatever, but I do. Just because you're big doesn't mean you can't be an athlete. And just because you work out doesn't mean you're going to have a 12-pack.
Time is not on Gaddafi's side. People ask about the exit strategy. It's Colonel Gaddafi who needs an exit strategy because this pressure will only mount and it will be intensified over the coming days and weeks.
I prefer the word 'musician.' I'm a musician and a composer. I have a problem with the word 'artist.' I don't know if it's the same in English, but words like 'artist' and 'star' put people on a pedestal, which is not really good for my brain.
I feel if I'm playing an athlete, I know I have to prepare. I need to get that body language right, I need to walk like an athlete, look like an athlete. If I'm playing a musician, I need to know how to play an instrument.
My intention when I came into this industry was to be a musician, not necessarily a recording artist, just a musician in general. And that's the reason I went to college and got my degree, which has been great for me. It's helped me a lot with my career.
I mean everything's a lot more smoother. It's just calm. IN the beginning, I had the typical attitude of a young rapper makin money... ya know I was the partyin guy... I was the guy wit the girls... all the extra that came wit the game...it's up to the artist to know when to say when. You can't live that kind of lifestyle forever. ...I learn from the other people's mistake. I know when to say no. You learn to make the right decisions and pick the right choices. That's all that's really changed.
I hate that when you introduce yourself, and you're a rapper, sometimes you gotta say, 'I'm a musician.' Or, 'I'm an artist.' 'I'm a recording artist.' 'I'm a vocalist.'
Patti [ Scialfa] was an artist and a musician and she was a songwriter. And she was a lot like me in that she was transient also. She worked busking on the streets in New York. She waitressed. She had - she just lived a life - she lived a musician's life. She lived an artist's life. So we were both people who were very uncomfortable in a domestic setting, getting together and trying to build one and seeing if our particularly strange jigsaw puzzle pieces were going to fit together in a way that was going to create something different for the two of us. And it did.
I'm not a rapper; I'm an artist. And I'm more than an artist. I'm a brand.
Before even Court Grip, I just wanted to be a part of a brand that I felt that listened to the athlete and really catered to the athlete, and gave us what we were looking for.
With acting, you wanna see if you can get into trouble without knowing how you're gonna get out of it. It's like the exact opposite of war, where you need an exit strategy. When you're acting, you should get all the way into trouble with no exit strategy, and have the cameras rolling.
Because of social media, a lot of people think they can be, like, a rapper or a singer or a musician because they can put something on YouTube and it might become a thing because there's - like - YouTube phenomenons and whatnot, you know? It's not like they dedicated years to it or anything. It's annoying.