Quotes About Creativity

I can do a whole project with Madlib and turn around and do a record with Gucci Mane. Gucci Mane, E-40, and Black Thought on the same record. I like all those rappers, so why can't I work with them in some type of capacity? It just speaks to my versatility. I don't just listen to one type of rap. I listen to all of it so I can make all of it.

Versatility is the key today. We have a smart audience today; if you keep doing same stuff, nobody is going to watch you.

The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.

I wrote my own verses. Anything I did, I wrote myself.

Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.

Even writing verses from my first album, there were songs that I didn't use because I just felt that they weren't really for me. But I think that happens naturally when you write songs. You're in a different mood in every session. There's so many songs out there that could potentially be used by other artists.

I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.

My passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work rather than just a 16-bar verse.

I've written many extra verses to songs that I learned to sing - an extra verse about a friend, or just add some verse - and that led to writing my own songs.

In writing 'The Satanic Verses,' I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this.

I like structuring verses, choruses, but sometimes the verses might be a tango and the choruses might be death metal.

I've always been a spontaneous singer. And all the stuff that you hear on the end of the songs, what they call the ad libs - that just comes out of my head. That's not thought out at all. I have the verses and the choruses, and then after that it's total improvisation.

I wouldn't say I'm a very controlling person. For instance, when I talk to the actors, I don't tell them exactly what I want because I want them to surprise me. I even encourage them to change some of the verses of the script if they need to.

We start a lot with melodies and instrumentation and trying to figure out good melodies for verses and choruses. We get to lyrics sometimes second, so we'll start humming a melody, finding something, and see where the music takes you as far as lyrics are and what you want to say and go from there.

There is a real formula to writing music, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. It's very formulaic. The subject matter that you can address in pop music is somewhat restricted. It just doesn't allow that same emotive quality that you can put into poetry.

The thing is, the way we write is all jams and bits and pieces that get pieced together and sometimes things are written with intentions of being a song, and then all of a sudden the main riff of this song, six months later turns into a verse or a chorus of another song.

You need a balance at all times. If the verse is a bit messy, you need it to be less messy right after. It needs to vary. 'Shake It Off' is a good example, where the math behind the drama is pretty clear.

I have always used a great variety of verse forms, especially in my poetry for children. I believe that poetry begins in childhood and that a poet who can remember his own childhood exactly can, and should, communicate to children.

It was the enchantment of spoken verse that led me to write for children.

We play a beat for 15, 20 seconds and know if we want to get on it. When we record a verse, it's no more than 15, 20 minutes. We don't have a pen and paper. We bounce off each other.

It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders the day I finally finished both verses for 'My Shot.'

The vast majority of free verse is ghastly. Utterly ghastly. No one reads it. No one listens to it.

As for my stuff, I'm just doing guest verses for other people's records. I try to stay recording, because if I don't, I get rusty.

I just write verses. I don't write all day long. When I have something that needs to be said, I just write it down on my notepad in my iPhone.