A Quote by Michael Pena

I guess people recognize me, but I'm not a household name. Two out of every five people who come up to me know my name. The one thing I don't want is to be followed by paparazzi.
Most people don't recognize me, but they know my name. TSA people rarely recognize my name, ironically, and they are the security people.
When people come up to me and say, 'You made it,' I think, 'But I'm not done yet. Not everyone's heard my music.' I want to be a household name.
Traveling, I've met Ghanaian people who have seen me in minor stuff, but they see the name Ato Essandoh, and they recognize it as a Ghanaian name. They come up to me and are always so excited. You don't think about it, but they really absorb American culture.
God, in a dream, talked to me, and he gave me that name. I'm like, 'you know what God? That is a funny name! I might need to run with it!' And ever since then, I've been calling myself Swaggy P. It's a household name.
It is annoying when people call me Matilda instead of my name when they actually know my name, because you know, we are two different people. But what can you do?
I tell people all the time, men don't talk to me. Even before I was a household name or whatever, when I went to clubs, people were scared to come to me because of the way I looked.
I'm actually called Bang, a quite common name in Denmark where I'm from, so it's not like me trying to come up with a very stupid name for people to remember me or something.
I can't stand when girls come to me and say they want to be a model, but they can't tell me who the top three photographers are in the world. They can't tell me who the top five biggest models are or name three cosmetics companies. They can't even name the top fashion magazines! You have to get it together and know your stuff.
You know I've had people come up and ask me to sign their guns. Sign my name on gun handles and holsters and stuff. I've done it once or twice for law enforcement officials, but when people do that -- and there have been quite a few of them lately -- I always tell them no. I don't want to do that. I don't want my name on that and I hope you use this gun, whatever its purpose is, I hope it's used wisely.
Maybe at some point, I will come out with my #MeToo story. Very well known and important people have tried to take advantage of me or have misbehaved. They are still around. When I want to name them, I will name them. It will not be one name, there will be quite a few names.
I'm a blowfish. I'm not a shark, I'm a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head, it's like a blowfish. I wasn't coming out of my house going to a paparazzi's house to attack them. I'm defending my family in front of my own house. I'm defending my name as someone's screaming something negative at me. That's a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn't want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people.
My name is very important to me. I'm representing the Wade name. I've got the name on the back of my jersey when I play. I walk around with that name. That's my family name, the name my son will grow up with. So it's very important to me to keep the level of maturity that I have.
What is more important than the name is that people know that I really like acting, I enjoy it and I want people to know that I am serious. The name thing: I will always be L.L. Cool J.
The most important thing ... is the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord will be glorified. I want to let the people know that there is a God who can raise people from nothing into something. And that's me. I came from nothing into something.
Usually, when people hear my last name, before they really get to know me or work with me, there's probably a lot of preconceived notions that come with that. And I imagine most of them aren't good. Because for every wonderful second generation of a famous person, there's people that aren't that way. More entitled people.
It's really helped a ton in the sense that we get to reach people who don't normally know our music. At least once a night at a show someone will come up to the merch table after the show and say they've never heard of me but they saw me on Troubadour, TX, and it reminds me that I'm not Elvis and anything I can do to get my name out there is beneficial in every way.
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