A Quote by Taio Cruz

I don't like the word 'urban' because I think it's a bit of a generalisation and they use it to class music, but I don't think it's a word that necessarily classes music.
I think rap music is rap music. I mean, are there heavy writing aspects of it? Absolutely. In a sense, is it poetry? Yeah. I've heard that so much, growing up in a house with poetry. But I think people like to use that as a shortcut for who's good and who's not. It's like the word 'lyrical' - 'lyrical' is the worst word in the entire world.
I think youth will always be connected to the strongest music at the time because... I don't want to use the word 'tribal,' but there was this sort of familial affiliation that people would feel with the music they were listening to.
You have to be logical and use international words so people can relate to reggae music. I'm the inventor of the word reggae music. I'm the one who coined the word reggae. So, whatever I put out on my label - my label called D & F Music - it has to be positive.
A lot of people make music to sell music. I don't just sell music. I am essentially, I guess the word I want to use is, it's like an energetic transaction.
I think that the word 'ambitious' is still used in a derogatory way when it comes to women, in a way that it's not when it comes to men. It's a generalisation because not everyone is like this, but I think there's almost a love-hate relationship going on with successful women, where you can be a little bit successful and you'll be celebrated, but don't become too successful because that seems to bring out the hate in some cases. Take one glance at social media and you can see that successful women don't seem to be treated with the same respect as successful men.
I've been in situations like in Tokyo where people sang my song word for word and then when the music stopped, they couldn't speak to me. I've seen the music break the language barrier.
I was a terrible student, but I never missed a music class. In fact, I don't even think I attended most of my gen-ed classes, but I never missed a single music class.
Music is made of what we do when we move, and we can only move in certain ways, in certain ranges of tempo because of the inherent constraints that our bodies offer, or you can call them 'affordances' - that's another word for me. It's a little more positive; doesn't make it seem like a limitation, but rather, a set of opportunities. You can say that that's part of music making, but there's also the imagination. The power of the imagination is kind of trumping - sorry to have to use that word.
Just because I have a good vocabulary, I don't think of myself as anachronistic - just because I try not to use the word 'like' every other word.
Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.
I think the word 'blog' is an ugly word. I just don't know why people can't use the word 'journal.'
I have to use the word 'insurgent' because I can't think of a better word right now.
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Music is just a word for something we love largely because it consists of things that words can't express. Likewise, the heart is just a word for something in us that music sometimes touches.
If we reject the word, or any word that labels music, what's left? That's the question we should all ask ourselves. Ben Ratliff asked it, and he came up with aesthetic categories. That's not what I would say. What's left are communities who make music together, or among whom music circulates. That's it.
Another one of my favourite sayings is, you can't handpick your audience. I feel like I'm making music for people who think like me about music, and that takes a lot of different forms. I could never generalise - but I think if I were to generalise, I'd think that you would say that most of my fans are music lovers who are looking for something outside of the mainstream: maybe a little bit hard to pin down, a little bit hard to categorise.
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