A Quote by Theaster Gates
I think I'm passionately allowing myself to be influenced by the things that are around me.
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So I think the biggest thing that I've learnt in my career is not allowing external factors to determine my self-worth - external factors being what coaches think of me, the amount of playing time I get - not allowing those things that actually are out of my control affect how I feel about myself.
You know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?
I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing things and not allowing things outside of myself to distract me or bother me or affect me in any way.
People think the film industry is going to corrupt me, but I feel like it's kept me more innocent, in a way. I wasn't really home when my friends were trying pot for the first time. I was always around adults who wouldn't smoke or curse or do anything like that around me. I don't do things that are dangerous to myself. I don't want to hurt myself
I set a Google Alert for myself, and now I'm seeing people say my music influenced them and how great it is all the time. Sometimes I listen to this stuff that's supposed to be influenced by me, and I can't hear myself in it. But I'd rather they say it than not.
Some loves have to be given up, others have to be forgotten. Strange as it may sound, if you think of me as a monster, but I can love most passionately. I do not think of myself as evil.
There's a glorious sense of freedom in comedy, just allowing myself to tell jokes, allowing myself to interrupt myself and tell old African folk stories that I made up - or didn't - and Jamaican stories.
There are a lot of things that I'm allowing myself to be, but it's a conscious effort to experience contentment for me. My brain doesn't do that naturally. I'm very overwhelmed all of the time.
One of the things that I've worked my way out of doing, and I knew that I needed to, was comparing myself to other people. That just poisins everything. It all of a sudden dtermines even clothes you're going to choose to wear that day or what you're going to do with a music production or how you're going to sequence it. It poisinseverything. Your real job in the world is to be you. Comparing yourself to other people I think that hurt me more than anything. Allowing myself to go there so much in my head hurt me.
Spending time by myself is VERY important to me and I wake up pretty early, I wake up around 5 in the morning, and I get to have a couple hours to myself, and that is definitely I think really important to me and I think it's important for moms to have that too. And I love to carve out time for myself and sometimes I'll hang out with girlfriends, but i like to keep things pretty intimate.
I've realized that when I've done things that I actually regret, it's been the people that I've been around that have either not stopped me or have influenced me in that direction. So I think it's really just truly evaluating your friendships. If you're around people who are negative and are just sycophants... and steal your light, then that's a bad person, and you need to truly cut them out. It's hard to cut them out but you will feel so much better after.
Nicki Minaj thanked me on the first mixtape that she put out. She shouted me out, said thank you for allowing her to borrow my English accent sometimes. And honestly, a lot of people have told me that I've influenced them.
I'm Cuban and Puerto Rican and Miami is very Cuban oriented. Growing up around the music - all of the salsa and meringue influenced me as an artist. I find myself gravitating to latin influences, sounds.
I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . .
Who influenced me the most? I'd have to say Lauryn Hill, I think she influenced me the most.
I was really only around country music on the radio, and I think because I grew up so close to Atlanta, and R&B was such a big part of that culture, by proximity I think a lot of that music influenced me without knowing it.
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