The World Motivation
American music has become really heavily stylised and focused on production. With producers like the Neptunes and Timbaland, it's so much about the backing track rather than the song.
“American music has become really heavily stylised and focused on production. With producers like the Neptunes and Timbaland, it's so much about the backing track rather than the song.”
American music has become really heavily stylised and focused on production. With producers like the Neptunes and Timbaland, it's so much about the backing track rather than the song.
As an artist, you want to form your own identity and be your own performer.
Reggae is not music I know inside-out.
I think a lot of style is about attitude - posture, deportment, gaze and confidence. I saw that in my mum. She was a cleaner when we were growing up, but she had this stylish presence I admired.
My whole vibe is not really fronty and aggressive and blingy.
Blues and jazz is our American music.
You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.
I grew up watching American films, listening to American music, and it's a big contribution to the rest of the world. I mean, American jazz, for me, is the best thing culturally that America has produced.
If you met my dad, I think a lot of things would be put to rest. Because my pops is a pretty silly guy. But, Coldcut, they're based in the U.K. I'm a big fan of jazz music, so American music has had a big influence on what I listen to.
Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.