A Quote by Ezra Koenig

Well, growing up in the '90s, my first true love was ska music. — © Ezra Koenig
Well, growing up in the '90s, my first true love was ska music.
I didn't know anything about fashion, growing up in Orange County. I just knew about it through music, how ska bands dressed.
I was off the scene for a while during the ska period and when I returned and joined the Treasure Isle studio, I came there with a different mood. The musicians picked up on that and we kept on going in that direction. The music became slower, which gave the bass player the time to play more notes. In 1965 I named it rocksteady. The first rocksteady song was 'Girl I've Got A Date'. That one was still a bit up-tempo, leaning towards ska. It turned the tide and made Treasure Isle the number one studio.
I grew up in the '90s. My goal isn't to be a '90s rapper, but I have little hints of '90s influence in my music. It's a modern approach to classic rap.
At 15 I discovered girls and '90s ska.
Neville and I are big fans of ska. He's actually more into original, Jamaican, skinhead, two-tone ska from England, but I'm more into punk ska - Operation Ivy and stuff Rancid would do.
Look at Kate Moss, she's such an amazing representation of that peak '90s fashion of a slinky shimmery dress and choker. Fashion was playful in the '90s, and that's why I love music festivals as well. They have that playful essence.
I'm a guitar player, really - I mean, first and foremost - I grew up with all that great 1960s music, in terms of growing up, becoming a musician, so it's like first-love stuff; I'm always going to go back to it.
That was my first love growing up - classical orchestral music, especially Impressionism.
Music didn't really hit me again until the '90s, when the dancehall scene got going. The '90s were perfect for me. I would have really liked to have had The Slits out in the '90s again, to do tours and albums, because I think the '90s was a brilliant decade for music.
You're born with a certain love of something. Music was my first love, and that's the world I work from. Growing up, I was surrounded by artists, so my upbringing supported this lifestyle.
I get sentimental over the music of the ’90s. Deplorable, really. But I love it all. As far as I’m concerned the ’90s was the best era for music ever, even the stuff that I loathed at the time, even the stuff that gave me stomach cramps.
I'm not going to do anything crazy, but I want to do music that I'm passionate about. I'm finally at an age where I can do the music that I grew up loving, which was urban pop, '90s music. I grew up listening to the divas, so I'm very happy to finally do urban pop. I hope that it's received well, and it has been so far.
I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.
The first time I toured the U.K. was in the early '90s with Billy Pilgrim, so I know how much the people there love music.
Growing up with videos and YouTube, being able to see content from the '90s - music and games - that really helped me stay connected with the time before me.
I was growing up at a time when music was growing and changing so fast. I had learned all the big band sounds of the 1940s, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey. But then along came Chuck Berry, Les Paul, Fats Domino and I figured out how to make their music as well.
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