I remember being awed by it - the uniqueness and nicety of style - and I suspect I was a bit jealous because we were more or less of the same generation.
As a jealous man, I suffer four times over: because I am jealous, because I blame myself for being so, because I fear that my jealousy will wound the other, because I allow myself to be subject to a banality: I suffer from being excluded, from being aggressive, from being crazy, and from being common.
The world is more magical, less predictable, more autonomous, less controllable, more varied, less simple, more infinite, less knowable, more wonderfully troubling than we could have imagined being able to tolerate when we were young.
Mankind, transmitting from generation to generation the legacy of accumulated vengeances, and pursuing with the feelings of duty the misery of their fellow-beings, have not failed to attribute to the Universal Cause a character analogous with their own. The image of this invisible, mysterious Being is more or less excellent and perfect ? resembles more or less its original ? in proportion to the perfection of the mind on which it is impressed.
I'm used to being respected for what I do, and I've watched as my peers - Doug E. Fresh, MC Lyte - do the same thing and I remember the ones before me - LL, Run-DMC - how it was for them. I think we were able to achieve what we achieved because we watched the generation before us.
I realized a long time ago that instead of being jealous you can be inspired and appreciative. It carries more energy to you... That can be an awesome motivating force that can improve your life if you choose to be inspired and not jealous. One (being jealous) has no benefit whatsoever, the other is an incredible resource for creating momentum and improvement.
Sometimes I feel fashion is not open-minded enough. We need to push the old crowd to believe in what I believe, in the new generation. I remember when I started, my campaigns and and how I connected my love for music with fashion were a tiny bit controversial because they were like, 'How can you bring hip-hop or music into a luxury world?' or 'How you can be so connected to digital and use social media in luxury world?' Now it's changed, obviously, for the best, but I still think that we could push a bit more.
In the mainstream, I'm suspect because I'm black. I have dreadlocks, I have a goatee. I mean, I'm just suspect. In my classroom and at Columbia, I'm not as suspect because it's clear I know what I'm doing, but I am still suspect.
I grew up in Asia, and I remember as a little kid being in Taiwan watching films there and being so awed by these new worlds of entertainment.
My family went Intellivision instead of Atari. I would go over to my friends' houses to play their Ataris and was so jealous of that. I don't remember them ever being jealous that I had the Intellivision.
Everybody who's anybody has been competitive and over-sensitive and a bit silly. Look at Paul McCartney, look at Elton John. They're jealous of Justin Timberlake. I'm sure they were jealous of me when I was in my imperial phase.
What I saw over all that time were so many deals disappearing and producers disappearing, fewer movies getting made, and it just being a bit more difficult. Working with Joel, we were in a bit of a bubble because he was always making things that were working for the studio and that kind of thing. We were always in production on something.
My personal style at this point in my life is more audio; it's more driven on less visual and more musicality. But because of my upbringing, my fabulous mentors and teachers that I've had throughout my dance journey or career, I also possess a style that is of the past. It was just a matter of me reaching back.
For nine years, I was playing at more or less the same weight and I'm a little bit slower than I used to be. But I'm glad I have a couple of pounds more because I think it will help me in games for sure.
There is absolutely no reason to suspect that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize their out-of-state marriages will cause same-sex couples to raise fewer children or impel married opposite-sex couples to raise more children. The Virginia Marriage Laws therefore do not further Virginia's interest in channeling children into optimal families, even if we were to accept the dubious proposition that same-sex couples are less capable parents.
As the books got more and more Zionist and less and less socialist, my entire generation, at least a large percentage of it, simply left Judaism. We became Buddhist and Hindu and atheist or agnostic, all of which (except Christian) were more in keeping with peaceful self-transformative ideas that did not bow down to militarism.
I think the "dawning of a new era" sounds a bit pretentious, and to me it's simply a step closer to my roots, and thus yes - I do feel liberated by this. I know many dislike this move, and I suspect that it is not really the dawning of a new era, but rather a move to a style which sells less records