I'm getting older and the performance onstage was definitely, it was a bit sexier, but it wasn't too much. I don't want to scare off my fans. At the same time my fans are growing up with me, and I don't want to go way over the top.
When I was growing up, I wanted to dress like a lot of my idols, but I simply couldn't afford it, or my mother would say, 'Too much make-up' or 'It's too old for you.' So all I've ever worried about is that my fans could relate to me, and as a teenager with the same tastes and interests.
If you grew up the same way I grew up, don't listen to what certain tabloids want to tell you. They just want to steal your joy. They just want to pull you down.
Make your kids go out and play. Kids ought to grow up the way you and I grew up and we grew up fifty years apart or maybe more. But we did the same things. Now who's out playing in the afternoon? Nobody.
Where I grew up - I grew up on the north side of Akron, lived in the projects. So those scared and lonely nights - that's every night. You hear a lot of police sirens, you hear a lot of gunfire. Things that you don't want your kids to hear growing up.
I felt I grew up when I was about 28. I feel pretty much the same. I get reminded when I look in mirrors that I am not. Hopefully, you keep growing and keep planning things as you go along.
Where I grew up in Dallas, things might be a little more traditional. People have the same things in mind. They're supposed to grow up, go to college, get a job, get married, and have children, grandchildren. That's the world I grew up in.
The idea of growing up in the South and being a man is an interesting thing; there's a lot masculinity involved, with hunting, fishing, and playing sports that rural people take pride in, but at the same time, I grew up really not wanting to hate anybody.
I have six kids - four girls and two boys. I'm amazed that growing up in the same house, same parents with the same exposure to the same things that all my six kids can be so different. I see that as their (being) designed by God.
I grew up listening to an album start to finish, and you don't skip songs. You don't listen to a Paul Simon record and skip a song: you listen to it the same way you would eat a meal... the way the person who prepared that meal for you means for you to experience it. That's how you should do it before you add salt and pepper to it.
A lot of my fans are people who have grown up and don't have as much time to listen to the radio, but still want to keep up with what's popular. A lot of shows don't talk to them anymore, but I do.
I realize that I put my body through a lot, but I've always thought at the same time if I was a plumber or any kind of worker in that industry, which a lot of people that I grew up with are, I would imagine that their bodies feel the same, their backs are wrecked.
I was the kid in the class who was looking for the angles to question things or make wise-ass remarks, not knowing enough to be afraid of being myself or showing intelligence. But I wasn't the only kid like that in my classes because of where I grew up. I'm really thankful I grew up in a town where there were a lot of other mutant kids. I'm from Boulder, Colorado, which went through a lot of dramatic changes when I was growing up.
I didn't want my son to see the same things I had seen growing up or have to go through the same things I went through.
When I grew up I saw females doing certain things, and I thought I had to do that exactly. The female rappers of my day spoke about sex a lot . . . and I thought that to have the success they got, I would have to represent the same thing. When in fact I didn’t have to represent the same thing.
Growing up the way that I did - I grew up with a lot of cousins - you just have this imagination, and I love going and telling different stories. I'm a clown.