A Quote by Corey Smith
There are a lot of people who talk about a formula for being able to start a fan base. But for me, it's been about songs and just being hard on myself as a writer, feeling like there is a purpose to it all.
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I'm just gonna talk about being Nigerian-American. I'm gonna talk about being single. I'm gonna talk about what happened to me on the train today. I'm gonna talk about so many other things that, as a comic, you're able to talk about because you see the world in sarcasm.
We talk a lot about our identities, and we talk a lot about working to clear misconceptions about those identities. But it'd be really cool to see someone like myself not even have to talk about being Muslim or Egyptian, because it's just understood. We can all just be weird and not have to explain everything.
It's the balance I'm trying to find - not being disconnected but giving myself some space to be in my world. I feel like I'm surrounded by friends of mine who are very different from one another but all care about similar things. We talk about this a lot, and I think that's probably the main thing - being surrounded by good people is the best way to stay in a solid head space. You want to be able to talk about these things, and be able to think things through and feel things through. That's helpful for me.
My feeling is that, and I've been writing about my family over the years, although it might make them feel uncomfortable, people generally like to be written about. If I've written a song about the family, they enjoy being mentioned in the songs. Nobody's confronted me and said 'don't write any songs about me.
I don't like my wrestling or entertainment in general to be too clean or predictable for me as a fan. When I say clean, I'm not talking about dirty jokes, middle fingers and stuff like that. I'm actually not even a big fan of that. A lot of people talk about the attitude era being so great but a lot of it was terrible crap, sex jokes and over-the-top terrible bad comedy. It was Jerry Springer-like. They made a joke about a woman's breasts. Hilarious, but where's the wrestling? I look back on a lot of stuff now, and I'm like where's the wrestling? It's just a lot of crappy jokes.
I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.
I don't hide anything about my life, I talk about everything. I talk about it - all kinds of things. I've done songs about bad experiences, a couple about growing up in the ghetto and being abused, sexually. Being raped. And I talk about it.
I've always been a fan of AXE and when I heard about their new product and they sent it out to me for me to try and smell and I was like, oh man. It's hard for me to talk about something I don't care about or I'm not really into but once I tried it out for myself I was like, wow okay I can get into this [ collaboration].
I sort of felt like being young was normally written about as being very fun and light-hearted. And I think that's true, but I don't feel like there's a lot of songs about how hard it is when you don't really know who you are or what you want, and you feel like you have to apologize for simply just existing.
I might sound like a crazy person, but that's the way I pump myself up. You know how some people are just like 'I have to talk about it'? Sometimes I'll call my husband and we'll talk about it, sometimes I have to talk to myself in the mirror. So I start talking to myself: 'You got this. Don't think of this as Sports Illustrated, just think about this as the best swimsuit campaign you've done in your life. And just kill it and own it and don't put that pressure on yourself.'
I use myself as a template for my comedy. So first my background as a Muslim man, my being a doctor, I talk about my family quite a lot, my kids. Anything that resonates with me I talk about. The important thing is it should be able to work in a family setting.
I talk about being a 'what' to people. Like, being gay in mainstream society is a different kind of 'what' than being black. They don't always jive. It's confusing and leads to these really awkward personal stories that have just been in me for awhile.
I had a lot of time to myself, and I would listen to a lot of music, mostly music that I knew fairly well and had a relationship with. And I'd think, well, what is it that I've never been able to do that this person or people are able to do with this song? Why haven't I been able to do it, and what can they do that I wish I could do? And then I'd try to do that. I'd start each day getting into the songs, and I'd think about how I might get closer to this music that I love, but haven't been able to make before.
Just having the pain of being alive without anything else, whether it's good or bad. There's a lot of serious songs on the record, you know. That song is just about feeling like a fish out of water, feeling like you don't belong on the planet sometimes.
My main concern about coming back is being able to financially support it on my own. I don't want to depend on any record company to do it for me. But I have a fan base, people still streaming my music.
I don't like the feeling of being unhappy. I don't like the feeling of being unsure about myself, or uncertain with where something's going - I would rather turn away. I just can't feel like that ever again. It's just horrible.
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