If you've ever tried to move from L.A. back to New York, that's a pretty hard move. You forget how cramped things are in New York. You forget how dirty it is in New York. But, it's been the best move of my life, not necessarily for my career, but for my soul.
I spent a whole year in New York without going back to France. And I always came back because my mother was living in New York since I was 13. So I went to summer camps, hang out at the Roxy, go to class for ballet, so I always had part of my life in New York.
Yeah, I was only in New York from the age of six months until five years old. But my very first memories are all of New York. I remember my first rainbow on a beach in New York. I remember jumping on a bed in New York.
In June 2002, I had just finished 'Laurel Canyon' and decided to move back to Los Angeles after nearly a decade in New York. Post-9/11 New York felt different.
I've been back in New York a year and a half now. Before that I was on the West Coast for five years. There's no comparison between the two. You hear things in New York you don't hear anywhere else. Unless these guys go out. Quite a few make it out to the Coast. Of course, you can't stay in New York for ever. You have to move.
I lived in New York for a long time. Right after college I went there. So I got my first cell phone in New York. Back when you would flip the phone up. Way back when.
I had really bad grades in high school and didn't want to go to college, and my dad said, 'Why don't you move to L.A. or New York and pursue music? You've always been good at it.' It was the first thing that made sense to me and... It was the right move.
I always considered myself a songwriter, but I didn't move to New York with plans of doing that; it just sort of happened. Everyone thinks that I moved to New York strictly to play music, but I totally just happened to fall into playing with Woods, and it all got started from there. I just went to New York to hang out.
New York has changed a whole lot. For worse I think because back when I was growing up in New York we were always the trendsetters. I don't care if it was from clothes to hip-hop music, to whatever. Right now New York is a bunch of followers. A lot of them are. It's really not the same.
I did not move to New York with a plan. The first time I moved to New York, I just popped up. My sister was living here in New York. I just popped up. She had her baby and a husband, and I just popped up. 'Hey, what's up? I got $200 and dreams. Let's do this.'
I'm from New York and I love New York and I'm always repping New York, but what I represent is something deeper than just being a New York rapper.
I always wanted to move to New York because of the Velvet Underground, because of the picture that they painted of New York City.
The first time I came to New York - and the first time I saw the movie 'Paris Is Burning' - I learned about the homeless LGBT culture in New York City that goes back to the '80s. I found that very interesting, and it's definitely something that I care about.
I always thought I would move to New York after graduation, but, instead, I moved to Los Angeles. I realized I was more scared of that choice than I was of New York, and I thought, at 22, I should get it over with.
New York is not a place that lets you be indifferent. New York is this kind of place that, wherever you go, wherever you move, you are always confronted by your own time.
I was known for a lot of dunks, but my first big dunk really came here in New York. I had some others back then, but my first major dunk came against the Knicks and Kenny 'Sky' Walker. So, you know, New York has a lot of meaning to me.