Quotes from Anderson Paak

Drumming is a real part of my live show, and I like to do it because so many people aren't expecting me to go and do it.

My mom had a produce business in in Oxnard, and we used to take these long trips to talk to farmers and different distributors. She'd take us with her after picking us up from school, and she'd be blasting all this old soul music and R&B. I knew all those O'Jays songs before I knew Snoop or Dre or Tupac.

If you're doing black music, you should have a core understanding of where that comes from, and the fundamentals - so you're not some bozo thinking you're doing something new.

I didn't always take myself that seriously. Image-wise, I was somewhat of a jokester.

When the pastor's up there, they do this thing called looping. They are literally riffing and spitting in the key of the organ. When looping, you're in key, you're in a rhythm, you're in a pocket, and that's where James Brown was pulling from, and so that's where I'm pulling from. The only difference is I'm coming at it under hip-hop.

I'd been watching documentaries about early rock where white artists took 'race records' from blues and soul musicians to achieve mass appeal. I wanted to flip that and do an EP covering only white artists.

I didn't start playing drums until I was 12, for school band; they didn't have any saxophones left. My step-pops had a kit at the house, and I had never done anything that I understood so quick. It was so natural. It was the most fun and consistent thing in my life.

The dot stands for 'detail' - always be paying attention to detail. I feel that people take you as serious as you take yourself. I spent a lot of time working on my craft, developing my style, and after I came out of my little incubation, I promised that I would pay attention to detail.

I used to work with mentally disabled people when I was 18 or 19, changing diapers and catheters. I was working, like, 16 hour night shifts, having to distribute meds and go capture people who would break out of the house. Sometimes they'd have seizures, and we'd have to rush them to the hospital. That was an interesting time, very humbling.

I put a list together. It was like: Get health insurance, get a car, get a bigger apartment, travel more, get a record deal, get a publishing deal, sell 10,000 units, be a part of a No. 1 album, make a million dollars. I got to check off 90 percent of the stuff last year. I hit some serious landmarks in 2015.

I grew up in Oxnard, CA, and I went to a church called St. Paul, where I was playing drums. My mom had a strawberry company. The whole town of Oxnard is basically built on produce, and more particularly, strawberries.

My story as an artist has been about trial and error. It's been about artist development, character building, struggle, happiness and failure, family, and music.