A Quote by Rhiannon Giddens
When I first got into string-band music I felt like such an interloper. It was like I was sneaking into this music that wasn't my own... I constantly felt the awkwardness of being the raisin in the oatmeal.
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I'm a huge fan of a lot of different genres of music, and I really felt like somehow I had been pigeonholed a little bit - maybe of my own doing - and in a way where I felt like I was sort of falsely defined. What my music was being called wasn't really the music I was always listening to.
I'd worked on music docs for years. It felt like writing a novel. By the time I got to Keith Richards, it felt like making a sketch.
Honestly, I never felt like I wasn't an artist on my own. I always felt like the music I made was mine, whether it was part of a collaboration with people.
I think I've always felt as a band and as a musician and a music business person, I've always felt like an outsider, period.
I enjoy making music alone, and I like keeping my options open for how I release my own songs. But everybody in Grizzly Bear is full of ideas. So it's kind of boring to come to the band with a complete song and be like: "Here's what I want you to do." With this record, we wanted to make everything feel like everyone - music that we could never do on our own. That's a real gift, and it's one of the best things about being in a band like this.
I felt like when I got with Kanye, and we discussed me being on G.O.O.D. Music, he just really took me to a place in regards to music that I love and music that I had made previously. We had a clear understanding of what I wanted to make, and he just seemed like he was an advocate for hardcore, uncompromising hip-hop.
I felt a certain modicum of success because I had been paid well to be an actor for the first time in my life, but I felt like I had done adolescent work on the show, and stepping into the New York theater arena was the first time I felt like I'd come into my own. I felt like I was proving myself in a gladiatorial arena.
When I'm representing my music live I think of it very much in a rock band sense. When I first started doing festivals in the 90s there really weren't other DJs playing the stages I was playing. So I felt I was being afforded an opportunity to kind of make a statement about what DJ music can be live. In the 90s, if you were a DJ you were in the dance tent, and you were playing house music and techno music. There was no such thing as a DJ - a solo DJ - on a stage, after a rock band and before another rock band: that just didn't happen.
I really love music that's on the periphery of not fitting into a clear genre. I felt like I was constantly being described as something I didn't really feel like I identified with.
But, yeah, as far as Asian Americans go, I hope they know they can look at me and see that they can do music on their own, within a band or just on their own, and not feel like there's any barriers. I've never felt any particular barriers myself, being who I am.
I felt very proud to be part of a music scene that was changing the face of commercial music and rock music internationally, but I also felt like it was necessary for Soundgarden - as it was for all of these Seattle bands - to prove that we deserve to be on an international stage, and we weren't just part of a fad that was based on geography.
I got into music around the age of eight years old, and I think the reason why was because I discovered the Spice Girls. I fell in love with them, and it was the first time I ever felt like the music was just directed to me.
I guess when I got into my preteens, I turned about 12 and I decided to sing R&B, because I felt like one day there were some things I felt like I would want to say, that I couldn't say with gospel music.
When I started making my own music I was listening to people like Erykah Badu and Elliott Smith. I think I always gravitated towards slightly more understated voices because it felt like I could really connect with what they were saying. It felt more like a conversation.
Nas always been my favorite rapper, but 50 Cent, he changed my way of thinking about music 'cause he was so detailed in his music, I knew that wasn't lying. I never felt Tupac that way; I never felt Biggie that way. I love Nas music, but I never felt and believed like, 'This is for real.' 'Cause I grew up that gangsta lifestyle.
I never felt like I had a surface image to rely on that people would like - I always felt like my music would not be very fancy music, my voice is not very fancy, there is nothing hiding me from the audience.
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