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" When I started picking out music for myself, I was a hip-hop kid. DMX, The Roots, Outkast, people like that. "

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" I love the fact that I don't have a real job! "

" I struggled with depression when I was in high school, and I remember thinking that if I got a record deal and got a hit song, that it would solve all those problems for me. "

" I grew up a hip-hop kid doing mix-tapes. "

" I remember being 24 in Los Angeles. And up until that moment, when my mom would call my cell phone and it would ring, I would be flushed with some sort of excitement that we all have - a little dopamine rush, when my phone rings - and I'd look down, and it would say, 'Mom.' It used to feel like a job to pick that up. "

" I'm a big fan of country music. "

" A lot of people considered my career as an artist largely over. Two albums got shelved. But I've made music since I was a little kid, and for the majority of that time, I wasn't paid for it. So I will always be making it. "

" I didn't really experience any hardship like people tend to think of when they hear the words 'Detroit, Michigan.' I think Big Sean is a much better ambassador for the city. "

" My favorite Duke player ever is Steve Wojciechowski. He called me one day congratulating me on my success thus far, and I was like,'I appreciate it, but man, please don't congratulate me. I know when you guys start the season, you're not just trying to be 10-10 or ACC champions, you're trying to win it all.' "

" My focus is to try to appreciate the present moment more and more and more. "

" I was constantly looking for things outside of myself to make me feel good, and I think now that feeling can come from the inside, and that's why I meditate now twice a day. "

" I had an initial wave of popularity that, in time, crashed, and I slowly became less popular and less successful, and I had to figure out who I was without those things. "

" I enjoyed a cartoon show called 'Recess' throughout my high school career. The target audience for that show was 8-11 years old. "

" I've remixed lots of other people's songs, from Adele to Electric Light Orchestra to Beyonce, so when my record label said, 'Why don't you give 'Ibiza' to someone to remix?' I said, 'Sure,' because I like the idea of people reimagining art and making something new out of it. "

" When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want. "

" I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn't love myself enough. But now I realize that when you're an artist, you're making the music that's in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason. "

" I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning. "

" I stay up too late pretty much every night working on music. "

" I co-produced 'Boyfriend' by Justin Bieber and worked on Labrinth's album, so I've been keeping busy. "

" It's important to me that my songs actually make sense. So often, I turn on the radio, and I have no idea what the people are singing about. It may sound good, but when you listen, they're just saying words that rhyme. It's another song about nothing. "

" I think of the pop music that I've made in the past and hear on the radio as candy bars. And I was really good at making candy bars. "

" I looked at myself and realized I had a lot of boundaries up about what I would talk about, what was private for me and what wasn't. I decided to just get rid of them. It was quite liberating. "

" I think it should be socially acceptable for men to like 'You're Beautiful' by James Blunt. "

" I like regular girls. "

" I realized that a lot of people in my family had sacrificed for me to have the opportunity to go to a place like Duke. I owed it to them to finish. I graduated with a 3.6. "

" Some of my early musical memories are attached to grunge. "

" I was really lucky to grow up in an extremely diverse neighborhood. "

" It's not the job of the art to accommodate me and make me more money, make me more famous and get me more girls. "

" It's easier to make art for a society at a certain point in time with an understanding of what's going on. "

" People like me for my songwriting and production, not my singing. "

" I've always had an eclectic taste in music. But what I try to do is combine these things in ways that others would never think of, like putting Bun B on an Elton John song. "