Quotes About Memphis

The University of Memphis didn't have the flashy profile or the national exposure. It's a great university. I love the offense. I love the atmosphere, the big city. They have everything I want. The only knock against them is they are not a great team.

I used to listen to the radio, and when I was about 18 years old, B.B. King was a disc jockey and he had a radio program, 15 minutes a day, over in West Memphis, Arkansas, and he would play the blues.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, born and raised. It was hard. I stayed with my momma, then I ended up moving with my daddy.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Big time blues and music city. It's always been in my bloodline.

I still run into a lot of people from Memphis, all around the NBA. I feel like they're with me every game. I feel their love, their support, their pushing. I know they still cheer for me. They let me know they cheer for me. And there's a part of them with me in every game I play.

I keep a $2 bill rolled up in every pair of boots I own because one time, an older guy came up to me at a farmer's market I was playing in Memphis, handed me a $2 bill, and said, 'Stick this in your boot.' And when I stood back up, he handed me a $100 bill and said, 'Thanks for listening to me. Stick this in your pocket.'

I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.

After college, I went to Alley Theatre in Houston to work in their apprentice actor program. I thought I was gonna get discovered. It didn't happen. I moved back to Germantown, Tennessee, outside of Memphis, and taught at my old high school.

I love Memphis. They've been good to me, the town and everything else. And quite frankly, I love the NBA and love being involved in it.

My parents were working in a hospital in Memphis. But I didn't live there for any length of time that I remember. The first thing I remember is the town in Mississippi that I live in now, Charleston.

The fact is, I'm the biggest rapper from Memphis, I help a lot of rappers from Memphis.

No, I always hated modeling. I developed an early hatred of modeling just from having to do it; having won Miss Teenage Memphis, I had to model, and I hated it. It bored me.

I think the only mascot that truly defeated me was Grizz of the Memphis Grizzlies. He threw a 'Kick Me' sign on my back. I thought he was extending an olive branch... he blindsided me.

To be able to bring an entire city together is not easy, and we definitely have one thing in common in the city - that's the Tigers. The history of the school is well-noted around town. It is an SEC kind of country with all the SEC schools, but Memphis trumps all of that in the city. I embrace that.

Memphis don't bluff. It's a tight knit community.

The friendship I had with Elvis began to take shape in 1968 when I was recording in Memphis. I'd record during the day, and Elvis would send one of his guys over to bring me to Graceland at night. Everything you've heard about Graceland during Elvis's glory days is true and then some.

I got a studio built in my house, so I was recording there in Memphis and Atlanta. Those two environments give me that street feel.

In 1968, the sanitation workers of Memphis tried to form a union. The city resisted. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life.

Real respects real, so if you can get Memphis to love you, you have to have something real there. Memphis doesn't just support anybody.

Memphis breeds hustlers, I feel. It's just cutthroat living period, so to survive around vultures and savages like that, it prepares you for whatever profession you go in.

The Broadway run of 'Memphis' has been like going to the moon. It was so great to actually open at the Shubert Theatre and then amazing to be nominated for eight Tonys and attend all the luncheons and events.

I could not see myself going back into the studio without Tommy Dowd, our beloved producer who passed away in 2002. Then in 2009, Michael Lehman, my manager, really pushed me to meet with T Bone Burnett. I ended up meeting with T Bone in Memphis, and we hit it off right away; I knew he was a guy I could work with.

I feel like it took artists like Pimp C and Andre 3000 with 'International Players Anthem' - I feel like it took the Memphis sound to a certain peak but it never really broke into the mainstream.

I used to go down every year for the remembrance of Elvis' birthday. Memphis State College invited me to sit in the auditorium and speak to the people for one of those Elvis days.