A Quote by John Waite
Oh, man, really, from the moment I could articulate, I was all about music.
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I don't get competitive, really. So I don't know. If I'm excited about something, hopefully someone will think, "Oh right, you should do this." And that's great. I'm not being very articulate about this. I just don't want to do stuff if I'm going to feel bummed out and uninspired.
I was an actor when I was a teenager and it could have been the direction that I headed in. But music and my relationship with music is quite deep, and it really is the nucleus of my creativity. So I gave up acting so I could pursue music fully, and I never thought about really going back. And then [director] Lee Daniels met me and wanted to work with me, and that's how it started.
Balanchine is the number one influence for me. His work was really musically driven. He and Jerome Robbins were the ones who really showed me that dance could be about the inner relation between movement and music. When I was a student first seeing their work, I was like, 'Oh, this is a thing?'
The same applies to the music and film industries. Until the heads of the labels start wanting to make money rather than creating controversy, tension, and excuses about why piracy is making the job so hard that no one could do it but them - and oh by the way, they need a raise to really focus in on the fight - the music industry is going to have a very tough time of it.
I'm especially interested in what I call practitioner criticism, which is when people who practice an art form start writing about it on blogs. I think that's an immensely important development. I want to see much, much more of that. People who make music who are verbally articulate. And not all musicians are verbally articulate. But those who are should be encouraged to write about what they do and their perception of what other people do. It makes the discourse smarter.
I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I'm not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.
Over four or five years, I did six albums with three people: John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and Patti Smith. I felt that if I could care as much about their music as they did, I could be useful to them. I really cared about their music and their lives.
I'll stay in the studio for 12 hours at a time, just producing music and making records. It doesn't feel like 'Oh man I've got a job to do.' It's more like 'Oh man I didn't even realize I've been there this long.'
If we have a great idea, we'll go, 'Oh, this could be a cool movie.' Or really for us, it's more like, 'Oh, this is a really bad idea. Let's do this. This seems really stupid.'
When you write a song it's sometimes in a desperate moment whn you can't really articulate it. What I love about lyrics is what T.S. Eliot said: 'Good poetry is felt before it is heard.' I'm a believer in that. It's those moments when you sit yourself down, and talk to yourself in the mirror.
In 2003, being Virginia Player of the Year was an amazing feeling because I think that was the moment I realized I could actually, really go far in my sport, and I was actually, really good at something. At that moment, I knew that I could play at a high level.
I never worry 'cause people always try to categorize me. "Oh, that's reggaeton." "Oh, he's a Latin rapper." "Oh, he's crunk." "Oh, he's a Southern rapper," or, "He's a club rapper." As long as they're listening to the music and they're talkin' about it, one way or the other, that means I'm doing something right.
I'd probably like to get into acting - I've got lots of things that I could do, but at the moment it's just music, music, music.
When I went through the break-up, I really looked for some kind of music, or art or literature that could say, "I've been in the same situation." I couldn't find anything at the moment, and that made me really sad.
To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it "the way it really was"...It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.
I was born first to music. But I went into acting because my father knew so much about music he intimidated me. So, I picked an art form, he knew nothing about. So I could be my own man.
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