Quotes About Music

My dad was my first influence. He played classical guitar and my uncle Ron played the blues.

Of course my uncle was a giant, but my dad, in particular, had the house filled with these great Dixieland jazz stars, really the best of them: Henry Red Allen, Willie 'The Lion' Smith, Buster Bailey, Cutty Cutshall, Tyree Glenn, Zutty Singleton. These are all big names in the Dixieland world.

I'm from Florida, and my family somehow is really into country music. We're all southern in a way: My grandpa hunts, my uncle's, like, a redneck, and we're all NASCAR fans.

My mom used to be concerned 'cause I would never go outside. And when I'd go outside, I'd have friends, but I just was always in the house listening to music, practicing DJing all the time. Then my uncle got a keyboard, drum machine, so I'd just be in the house at 12, 13, just, like, messing up his presets. And my mom was like, 'My son is strange.'

I do know that on my mom's side, my uncle sang and had a gospel group. He also had a radio show he would do on Sundays with his quartet.

As a child singer, I never sang a single track for my father or uncle.

Hard rock I got into around twelve or thirteen. My uncle introduced me to Scorpions, Great White and everything rock. From there, I expanded out, and I listened to Nuclear Assault, Exodus, Megadeth, King Diamond and Misfits, of course.

I never knew I was a songwriter. I didn't even know I was a singer. My parents just got me a guitar 'cause my uncle told them to get me one, and I started fooling with it.

We know Uncle George directly, so he gives us music to sample, all we gotta do is tell him directly and we can use it.

My uncle gave me a trumpet, but I loved the Louis Armstrong sound and the Harry James sound and I played by ear and I played always soulful or very direct from the gut.

A few years later, my Uncle David took me to the Earle Theatre to hear Duke Ellington.

My parents had normal jobs, and I didn't just want to work all day, and so I thought if I could break into music I wouldn't have to work all day. And I had an uncle who was on Broadway, so I was like, 'I have to be able to sing.'

I got a lot from my uncle who is a really good ska guitarist. Very ragged makeshift rhythms and intricate lines.

I got into hip hop from my uncle; he was always playing us Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane. He was a bad boy, and my mum was not really happy that I was hanging out with him.

There was a guitar that my uncle owned and never learnt to play. He sold it to my dad, and when I heard 'Layla', that was the tune that really grabbed me. I said to my dad, 'Wait, there's a guitar, right?'

Music has always been in my family down to my dad through my uncle. I'm just the next generation, since it's always been around me when I was younger when I looked up to my mom and dad, to Michael Jackson, and B2K was my favorite band growing up.

Radio was my life growing up. Then, I started in our family band with my uncle, my father, my aunt and my little brother. We would go to The Chicken Box and all the bars and play.

I grew up around electronic instruments. To me, the turntable is an electronic device. At the same time, I had access to drum machines and keyboards through my uncle; then track recorders into computers. At an early age, I was messing with computers more than most hip-hop musicians.

I begged and begged, and my uncle gave me his old turntables. It was one hi-fi and one old Stereo Lab turntable and a rusty mixer. I was really chuffed. I kept that for five years - that's where I learned to mix.

My uncle introduced me to R&B, like Dru Hill, 112 and all those dudes. Eventually, he put me on Omarion's first album, and that was the first album that made me want to start singing.

My uncle, he's a big DJ out here in L.A. His name is DJ Tee; he's got a bar in Westchester.

My mother, Betty, was an entertainer - she opened up for James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner - and I had an uncle who would work as a chef in a restaurant, 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4. I was young, so he could have been shorter, but in my mind, that's how tall he was.

I was about 10 when I first began to sing. My mother had been away for three weeks, and I learned 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina.' When she came back, I sang it in front of her, my auntie Linda, my father, my uncle Jim, and my grandmother.

When it came to music growing up, it wasn't just gospel and R&B. My uncle brought rock n' roll to me when I was younger, and I loved it. I was open to all music.