Quotes About Inspiration

Hmm, on my downtime, I take a shower or listen to the Bible on tape.

I used to tape over the top corner of my computer screen so I couldn't see what time it was. I like the idea that I'm just with the words and not knowing what's going on with the world, when it's lunch or dinner.

I've been a writer since I was a kid. I've been a writer since I was, you know, dictating stories into a tape deck and trying to get my mom to type them up - when I was really, really little.

'It Still Moves' is really the only record in our catalog that I've always felt I wanted to remix. Part of the fun of that record was that we recorded it all to tape, and it was all super-duper organic.

I had this DVD that my coach in Cameroon had mailed to me when I first came to America. It was an hour-long tape of Hakeem Olajuwon and some other legendary big men. I probably watched that DVD every single day for three years.

I grew up watching 'Ghostbusters.' I loved that movie before I knew it was a comedy! As a kid, I lived between Ghana and Detroit and in Ghana for, like, first and second grade. And I had a VHS tape of that, and I would watch it every day. It's kind of like why I got into comedy.

With songwriters like me who are prolific, you just write the song and then put it on tape.

My friend gave me a VHS tape of Eddie Murphy's 'Raw.' I watched it so many times, I fell in love with it. I would watch it every day, just picking it apart. And then I started doing open mics around Maryland and D.C.: that's where I'm from. And I haven't stopped since.

Right around 11 or 12, when I saw Eddie Murphy's standup special 'Delirious,' and I taped it on a VHS tape - I think I watched it every single day. I lived and breathed Eddie Murphy for that whole year.

I'm one of those cats who could listen to Public Enemy and then pop that out and throw an NWA tape in there.

When I think of a song, I think of it as a beast. You chase these beasts around the room and try to grab them and put them in a tape machine. But they're slippery, and they run away a lot.

A song can go a million different ways once you first get it down on tape.

I watched Magic Johnson on tape. I didn't have a chance to watch him live. I remember I was 12 or 13, watching games, going to the gym and trying to mimic what they do. Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, all those guys.

I've been listening to Nicki Minaj since high school. Like, mix tape Nicki Minaj. Like, the mix tape, you know, 2006/2007. Huge fan of her.

As a 13, - 14-year-old kid, I'd sit on my bed with a tape recorder and a newspaper. I would do my own newscast. I would practice my diction.

So I use a tape recorder a lot to record ideas.

Every single morning, I have a person sitting right there next to me in prayer with a tape recorder - and a song comes up every day.

I have a tape recorder, and I just sing into it. I like to write that way. Sometimes I'll just get melodic ideas, and then I'll go home and sit down and add the lyrics. Or sometimes I'll get a lyric idea that I love. Usually it's pretty combined. Usually I get some kind of a lyrical concept and a melody and work with that.

I ain't never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

Imagine if Beethoven had a tape recorder. Then you'd know exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant 'Da da da da' instead of 'Boom boom boom boom!' Who knows?

I get like a melody that comes up and I try to write it down or record it. Hum it into a tape recorder or write it down on some manuscript paper. It could happen at any time, on the road or off the road, but mostly, you know, at home.

My first synthesizer was the VCS3. I got it in Bristol in the late Sixties, long before Pink Floyd used them. I had to sell an acoustic guitar and an old reel-to-reel tape recorder to raise the money. You can do fantastic things with modern computers, but you cannot use them in the same intuitive, spontaneous way you can a VCS3.

I'd say writing songs is, for me, as much playing the tape recorder as it is playing guitar or writing words.

I never really composed guitar solos. Id usually ask to run the tapes and Id go off the top of my head to make something work.