Quotes About Adaptation

The same song can have drastically different feels and personalities just by changing some minor things. A different drumbeat or some vocal overdub could completely transform the song.

But my role is to just apply the skills I've learned over the years: you listen to the guitar, you listen to the vocal melodies, you listen to the rhythm, and you come up with something that helps you take the song somewhere.

Normally, I am a vocal advocate for 'looking both ways' and 'knowing the size of one's own body.' But working, socialising and simply running errands in Manhattan, means I am bound to break my own rules on occasion.

Every single place that's brushed upon me has made me the artist that I am - from Nigerian Highlife music and the vocal melodies that I grew up on when I would be sitting with my father and his fellow chiefs, to the funk and freeness of the Bay Area groove, to L.A.'s smooth G-funk legacy, Brooklyn's lyricism, and now Atlanta's trap history.

'Gossip Girl' was an adaptation that, although very different from a Marvel property, had a vocal fan base. On that show, we started off very nervous about making any changes from the book. As we got our sea legs underneath us, we became more bold.

I actually ended up going through a vocal change. It started about two years ago, and it's only been recently that I found my balance again. Vocally, I couldn't figure out what was going on. My lows were getting lower, and my highs were getting higher; everything felt weird.

I've always been a leader. I've not always been the vocal one, though, I think that's become new to me as the years have gone on.

I'm probably going to be more of a vocal leader, which is a challenge for me with English not being my natural language.

I felt a little uncomfortable because, when I went in to the military, I was the main male vocalist they had and when I came out they had like two or three vocalists. Otis came in when I was in the military, too.

We used to have a main female vocalist. But she had a baby. Now we do the singing ourselves.

I used to chop up C-Span soundbites or interviews with politicians like John Kerry or Bill Clinton into a radio-esque show hosted by Awkwafina and her producer, Mookie. I would pitch down my vocals to have male guests and would send them to a small circle of friends after they were done.

The thing about covers is that the first thing you're going to notice is the vocals, because it's not the same person.

I started as a guitarist and couldn't find a decent singer, so I started providing my own vocals.

What it means to look like a woman or man changes regionally - from mannerisms to clothes to posture to makeup to even your vocals - so I just observe, and I replicate.

I think in my generation, when I came along in the early '60s, the type of music that was in vogue in society in those days had moved on to another kind of music. I was trying to sell antiques in a modern appliance store.

'Vogue' is a fashion magazine, and a fashion magazine is about change.

In 1986, I returned to London as editor in chief of 'British Vogue.' Although I still thought of myself as totally English, to my surprise, everyone here thought I was some sort of American control freak.

The evolution at 'Teen Vogue' is not a result of dinosaurs in a board room coming up with a strategy to reach the kids.

My voice has changed dramatically over the years.

The voice I use is a very old hardware speech synthesizer made in 1986. I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it.

The 'Voice Kids U.K.' songs were chosen for me, and I had to try and make them mine.

Truth be told, of course, what I enjoy most is reinventing myself and doing new projects where I work in new genres, or I get to find what the voice of a particular musical is.

When I had to sing 'Kajra re' for 'Bunty Aur Babli,' I thought that my voice will not match that of Amitabh Bachchan's.

I do not have voice for Russian music; I cannot be cute little peasant like in operas of Glinka or Rimsky-Korsakov. I am now never in Russia; I am Austrian citizen. But definitely I am Latin!