A Quote by Ralph Lawson

I just went into the studio and did it all in one take. All I was thinking about was the next record; I had already sourced the tracks I wanted to use. I'd been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to represent myself, Leeds and fabric. I'm not very nationalistic, but I wanted to represent what was coming out of Britain as well as at the moment there's a lot of really good new music.
It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously -- and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.
I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it.
After 'A Good Day to Die Hard,' I had a bit of an identity crisis as far as where I wanted to place myself in the business. When it's all new and fresh, there is a lot of pressure to know what you represent, and I didn't really get that.
I did a lot of sitting back and thinking about what I wanted for myself and what I wanted for my country: more unity, more support for the arts and more opportunities for young writers from marginalized groups.
I came here from Romania when I was 12 years old. I had an accent. High school was tough a little bit for a few years. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be good-looking. I wanted to be popular. I spent a lot of time thinking, 'What are these people going to think of me?'
I'm really excited about the remixes. I've always been a fan of electronic music and I'm thinking about that very seriously for the next record as well.
I tried to stay away from the Euro beats, and not go totally pop. Instead, I wanted to take the Quincy Jones approach. The record pays homage to the Stevie Wonders, the Michael Jacksons, the Sam Cookes. I wanted to put that classic essence of R&B and soul with the new age of music now. There’s a lot of live instruments, and a lot less Auto-Tune. I really wanted to demonstrate my vocal ability, creating the vibe of me singing along with a band.
Well, [bluntness in songwriting]'s a lot cheaper than therapy.... There's been a lot of things going on for the past 10 years that I just never really confronted, or used metaphors to do so. This time out I wanted to make sure that everyone knows what I'm talking about and where I'm coming from.
I wanted to represent for Polynesians, and that was always my goal, because not everyone knows about us, and I just want to represent for them.
I take music really seriously. I haven't been doing this for too long, but I've been loving music for a long time. It wasn't really about other artists. I just wanted to do something more for me. I wanted to make a better life for my mom. I didn't have any way to take care of her, and I wanted to make a better way. Music was an outlet, so I went with it, and there you go.
Every year, I laid out a strategy of what I was going to do, and I was very successful. In 2003, I wanted to take the world by storm, and I did that indoors. In 2004, I wanted to run fast; I did that. In 2005, I wanted to be dominant, and I did that as well.
We drank quite a lot and Tony Harrington said, "We're thinking of starting a record label at The Wire; how about you do a solo record?" I said, "Well, how am I going to do that?" I thought about it, and I'd been working on a lot of music in the years before, and I was working as a journalist, full time, really, up until that point; in whatever little spare time I had, I was working on music. So I said yes.
I didn't want to be driving to work everyday and sending out my Starbucks order. I didn't want to be in New York or L.A. I wanted to have space and I wanted to be in a remote place where all of us could just be ourselves and not worry about anyone trying to listen in or get in on that. I wanted to just be comfortable. I feel like being in a big city - as much as I find New York, in particular, very inspiring in a lot of ways - can also be claustrophobic.
The '80s really were - talk about no rules. People just did whatever they wanted; they could look however they wanted. There was just a lot of bigness and brightness.
Once I really understood what skating was and what the Olympic really entailed, I knew that's what I wanted to do: I wanted to be there; I wanted to represent the U.S.
I really was thinking a lot about the energy on the first couple records that we ever put out and how young and excited we were. I just really wanted to make it more fun than anything.
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