A Quote by Jay-Z
Around 20. I'd been trying to transition from the streets to the music business, but I would make demos and then quit for six months. And I started to realize that I couldn't be successful until I let the street life go.
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It would take six months to get to Mars if you go there slowly, with optimal energy cost. Then it would take eighteen months for the planets to realign. Then it would take six months to get back, though I can see getting the travel time down to three months pretty quickly if America has the will.
I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated.
I am right at the bottom compared to everybody else with press kits and demos and trying to get meetings. That's what I love about music and hate about it. That's why I respect people that are successful in the music business because you really have to build it from the ground up.
My best friend from up the street, another really tough kid, we'd box every day after school, starting around 6th or 7th grade. We would go in the backyard, and we would slug out. We'd box until we got tired or until somebody quit. Other kids would come over, and they would want to box. Most of the time they didn't fare too well.
I dropped out of Reed College [Portland, Oregon] after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
There is a terrible thing that's been happening probably for the last 20 years or so and it's called the music business. And music isn't really business; it's work and you got to pay and you've got to buy your guitar or go into the studio. So there is a business side but when people say, "I'm going into the music business," it's not. It's about expression. It's about creativity. You don't join music, in my mind, to make money. You join it because it's in you; it's in your blood stream.
We would go to visit a wholesaler, say in Napoli. We would go out, have a very long lunch, mozzarellas, wine. We would reach an agreement. And then the client would pay with a cheque that was postdated by six months, nine months. They were financing themselves by delaying their payments.
When I was 20, I was the hustler - rubbing my temples, stressed, trying to get out the streets, trying to take my life to another side of the game with something I really loved to do: rap music.
This is my year of transition from what I'm calling the second phase of my life to the third phase of my life. And I wanted to pass it along. What I mean by that is, in the first days of your life you're dependent on others and you learn. You're basically a kid, depending on your parents. In the second phase of your life, you're working and others are dependent on you and you're trying to be successful. And then when you go to the third phase of your life it's no longer as much of a kick to be successful. There's a natural, instinctual desire to help other people be successful.
And so my music, it doesn't matter if I did it 20 years ago or if I did it tomorrow. It doesn't go with trends. My trousers don't get wider and tighter every six months. My music just stays what it is, and that's the way I like it.
The entire time I was modeling, I was trying and failing at businesses. In fact, we would have started our business much sooner had I been more successful.
I was doing unemployment for a little bit and then I started a dog-walking business in my neighborhood. I went to FedEx and started printing out some flyers and hung them up around my neighborhood. Then I started walking people's dogs for a couple months.
The good thing about being an actress is that it's very children-friendly. I can work for three months and then I can have six months off. And then I can work for six months and have six months off.
I ain't makin' music for the media. I make music for the people in the streets - that want a street level of entertainment. I'm makin' music because I have the streets to feed.
I always wanted to be a comedian. I loved comedy since I was a little kid, and while I was at university I started doing stand up shows. Once I realized that I was good at it I quit college and left although I had six months left. I went to England. I could have done the last six months but I realized that I was better at standup comedy than I was at singing opera.
Statistically, Portland, Oregon has the most street kids, like kids that run away from home and live on the street. Its like a whole culture thing there. If you walk around on the streets, there are kids living on the streets, begging for money, but its almost like a cool thing. They all just sit around and play music and squat.
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