A Quote by Kenny Beats
Lil Jon was definitely a pioneer for some of the punk-rap acts we see now. He showed you could scream on a song and still have a hit on the radio.
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How many rappers in the game have "little" in front of their name? Lil' Wayne, Lil' Boosie it's a lil' shame Lil' Flip, Lil' Cease, yo they not the same Lil' Wyte, Lil' Mama, where Lil' Zane? Little Brother, Lil' Jon, and Lil' Fame Real hip hop, not about your lil' chain Lil' Keke, Lil' Kim a lil' freaky Lil' Fizz, Illegal with Lil' Maliky Lil' Mo, Lil' Bow Wow had beef with Lil' Romeo A lil' teenager told me so.
As I've gotten older, now I've really got to back that up with record sales. Anytime showed me that I could still have some of those elements I wanted, but you still have to come with hit after hit after hit.
These are very difficult times for new artists. Back in the day, a hit song could really seep into a person's DNA with radio and MTV. A hit today is not the same as a hit twenty years ago. Now there is so much competition, it is very hard to reach the people. The music scene is so overly saturated. There are no gatekeepers like there used to be.
When you finish a song, your first thought is going to be, 'Is this song a hit?' I hate that we think that way, because it kind of takes a little bit of the meaning out of the songs that are being written, but you're definitely going to think, 'Can this song be put on the radio?'
As a late teenager, the punk movement pushed me further. In particular, the Clash, which happened to leak through the time of disco, showed me that there was this cross-cultural sound that could cut across genres and audiences. Like punk was to disco, rap music was a rebellion against R&B, which had adopted disco and made it worse.
I did know that I could do scream very well. When I was in high school, I got a very strange job one Halloween filming screams for a radio station. I would just go into a soundstage and scream and scream and scream, and everybody would put on ear plugs, so I had an inkling.
"Smooth Sailing" and "Hall of Fame" are my top two nicknames. "Cool Guy." "Jolly Jon." "Fun Jon." There's a lot of derivatives of Jon. "Cool Jon." Some people took "Smooth Sailing" and "Fun Jon" and made "Smooth Jon." That's a good one. It's just starting to catch on with the general public. Just every now and then, "Hey! Smooth Jon!" Or "You're Smooth Jon, right?!" People aren't quite sure. I'm like, "Yeah." "Okay, cool, that's what I thought!"
I wish I could rap! I wish I could rap like Azealia Banks or Lil Wayne or someone like that... Twista. He's super fast.
As long as I'm still able to have a hit on the radio and sell a few albums and some tickets, I don't see that it would be worth retiring.
I rap on 'Front Porch Junkies' and 'Whatcha Got in that Cup.' I try to channel my inner Lil Wayne and Drake. It's fun to be able to freestyle over a country melody and say country words over a rap song.
It's lifestyle music. It's not like some secretary who likes some pop song, but can't name who the band is; whereas a heavy metal fan is into every aspect of it. We'll see if rap holds up to that. Run-DMC seemed to be the Led Zeppelin of rap.
I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.
I'm into a lot of music, definitely a lot of rap. 'Dedication 4', the Lil' Wayne album. Actually, I've been getting into some Swedish house music; the beat just keeps me going a little bit.
Growing up as a comedian the most influential person on me was Jon Stewart. He showed that comedy could have a real tangible effect on the world. He showed that comedy could move the needle of society and that a comic can do real things and make a real contribution.
When you're like, 'Yo, we gotta write a hit song, we need a hit song right now,' that never works. Every time that happens, I never write a hit song.
I don't ever have the pressure of making a hit, because I've never had a hit song, per se. The closest thing to a hit song was 'Shiraz,' and it's not your prototypical hit song, with a catchy hook and all this other stuff.
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