A Quote by Mahershala Ali
At a earlier age, I was kind of into a pretty large scope or range of music from Hieroglyphics and the Hobo Junction guys and all that to like a lot of stuff that was in New York like Diamond D, Nas, Brand Nubian, of course Biggie, OC, Organized Confusion, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Digable Planets, who I just saw recently, and they killed it.
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I grew up listening to a lot of hiphop music and R'n'B. Bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions, Cypress Hill, New Edition, Bob Marley, Prince, Stevie Wonder, and a lot of Spanish music.
I say that I do soul, R&B music. I have so many influences, from Billie Holiday, Nina Simone to Stevie Wonder and Prince and even Al Green and Bjork. And a lot of hip hop music has influenced me a lot - you know - De La Soul and Digital Underground and A Tribe Called Quest.
I spend the majority of my time in New York and LA. I feel like a large part of my following and my fans are probably in New York and LA because of the work that I do is very New York-LA-centric. So people do recognize me. But it's nothing overwhelming at all.
My dad is from Queens. I remember visiting as a kid. My grandparents grew up here. All the actors I respected were coming out of here. All the hip-hop I was listening to - Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie, Wu Tang - was coming out of New York. I'm just into it.
I listened to a lot of Jay Z and Nas, stuff like that, so I was always New York-influenced. I think I have that New York flow.
In the very beginning, I kind of had this hip-hop, cut-and-paste approach to music. The first record, especially, was from looking at people like DJ Shadow and A Tribe Called Quest, and I think a phase that a lot of people go through when they start sampling is to go out and stamp on twigs and try to record that kind of stuff.
Biggie was the King Of New York as a rapper. There's a lot more dangerous guys than Biggie Smalls out there, you know what I'm saying? John Gotti was way closer to King Of New York than him.
The only time I ever really got into rap was back in the early '90s, and bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Gang Starr. Musically, they were really interesting. But when hip-hop acts start sampling Sting or Phil Collins, then I just don't get it at all.
I'm really influenced by '90s hip hop. A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were my heroes growing up.
I'm an east coaster, you know, I'm brought up in Toronto where it's very much, like, kind of a miniature New York in that there's a subway and you're surrounded by people a lot and, you know, you bump into people and you have interactions and you communicate and la la la.
I'm an east coaster, you know, I'm brought up in Toronto where it's very much like, kind of a miniature New York in that there's a subway and you're surrounded by people a lot and, you know, you bump into people and you have interactions and you communicate and la la la.
I grew up on Wu-Tang and Tribe and Nas, all the raw, very New York-driven music. Then when I got older - in my late teens, early twenties - and that's when I started to listen to Drake and J. Cole, and so it wasn't just East-coast.
With Biggie, I thought his flow and his swag was better than Tupac's, but I thought Tupac's passion and ability to relate to the average person was better than Biggie, and I thought Nas was kind of like both, with a lot substance going but a lot of swag.
A lot of stuff that I dealt with - music was my serenity, like kind of my safe place, my haven that I would just use in order to really just get away from the things that I saw every day. To kind of erase the things that I saw. So I stayed playing.
I grew up listening to a lot of early '90s hip-hop. I had the debut Wu-Tang album, Biggie, Snoop, that kind of stuff. Hieroglyphics, the Gravediggaz. I remember D.O.C.'s 'The Portrait of a Masterpiece' was something that had a big influence on me.
Other [artists'] music is really what you get most inspiration from, whether consciously or subconsciously. I like a lot of old music and a lot of soul music. I also really like a lot of new stuff.
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