I believe what Wondaland is doing is creating depth.
— Jidenna
If I'm shopping at the Gap or Old Navy, I'm saying that I'm an ordinary person: I don't want to be seen; I don't want to stand out. That's a statement. If I'm wearing a leather jacket, there's something about me that's kind of a rebel. So everybody says something, whether they want to or not.
Jesus' birthday is commercialized, so of course, Black History Month is commercialized.
I think one of the things that I picked up from Nigeria is the constant pressure to be excellent. Parents drill in this responsibility towards family, but also a responsibility toward making sure your family name is heralded.
I feel like we haven't dealt with the ghosts of America's past, and the way to deal with it is to confront it, so every time people see me, I want them to be reminded and to confront that ghost.
Yes, it's still a man's world, unfortunately, and we have a long way to go in this country and all countries - but there's something to be said for just feeling the spirit of a true man, and I think that's what 'Classic Man' speaks to.
Even if the production doesn't feel African, the vocal delivery - singing through your nose. Specifically, Highlife music from Nigeria. That was the first music I ever heard as a child. So singing through my nose is something I do often, and that's directly rooted in my heritage.
I'm the guy on the corner that is slightly peculiar but fun and funky.
First of all, I respect The Game. He's trail-blazed for artists like myself. I appreciate him, having - living in L.A. myself and knowing what he stands for and what he stood for.
I think a lot of people try to be someone else, and Young Thug really is who he is. I love his melodies, how he dresses, how he carries himself.
In Brooklyn, all the kids call me the 'Willy Wonka of the Hood.'
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.
It's better to do your purpose imperfectly than to do someone else's purpose perfectly.
One day, my mum bought me this music production software for my computer, and I started making beats... I realised it was more like production than a video game, but it was a video game when I was playing it. That's how I got into music production.
My father raised me to build computers, hardware. Literally, as an 8 year old, I had a soldering iron and circuit boards, and this was in neighbourhoods that wouldn't have a whole lot of money or anything. And I figured out ways to just hustle.
I reached rock bottom halfway through college. And it was - because of all the pressure that I think we're talking about right now - the pressure to learn how to budget, the pressure to really abandon everything that you ever learned. You don't have a comfort zone anymore. You don't have your neighborhood. You don't have your family with you.
Like most people, I had several awakenings.
My nickname is 'Chief' because my father was a chief in Nigeria.
There are always pluses and minus to commercialization. It broadcasts something to the masses. So that's the plus. The minus is it may lose some of its meaning if you dilute it.
I think hard-core capitalism tends to commercialize everything.
I was born in Wisconsin, but I quickly moved to Nigeria as a toddler.
The affinity towards suits was a functional thing for me early on because I was thrifting at secondhand shops, and it was also initially a way of grieving - my father had passed, and he used to wear suits all the time.
I thought the suit was something that would suit me.
There was no question that I was going to school.
In music, I wanted to make sure I was innovating.
When I was a boy, I was sagging my pants like everyone else. Some boys become men and continue to sag their pants because that's their form of rebellion.
For me, I wear a suit because I need to remember what's happened before me.
I like quality over quantity.
I don't have one geographic location that I'm exclusively loyal to.
I began my studies in a sound and electrical engineering program, but I ultimately created a major called 'Ritual Art.'
I describe myself as a big kid with an old soul, I'm very playful whimsical, but I definitely have that old soul as well.
I was raised with a father who really believed in the bridge between all Africans around the world.
The one thing that I learned in college, actually, was that you may reach tremendous highs and tremendous lows.
I think it's the job of the artist to reflect the times and also reflect his or her views of the world.
I've always been dabbling in suits, but like a lot of people in the neighborhoods I grew up in, I had my snapback; I had my v-neck. I still got them in the closet. I got my J's, my Forces; it was standard.
Does Martin Luther King really want his birthday commercialized?
California was special. It's a place where I learned how to be adventurous, both in style and fashion, but also in terms of the way I think.
I think it's important to not just think about what you want but what's needed in the world.
The trick of Afrobeats is it doesn't just move your upper body, it moves your hips as well, and I think that's what people have been missing in popular music for a while. I think that's what people need around the world.
A great tailor is like a great personal trainer - they tailor that suit to your natural physique.
Willy Wonka had his chocolate factory; I have my Fear & Fancy Parlor.
I started singing because it was a natural evolution in hip-hop to me. Without Prince, I wouldn't have embraced that. I wouldn't have been able to embrace me.
We're social beings, and I need to know and remember where I came from.
If one door is closed, break a window anyway.
Nothing I'm doing is without its predecessors.
Everything you touch touches you.
The most important thing for me is the thing I strive for. But I also hope when I play my songs for people - adult, children, mostly children - that they feel mighty, they feel noble, they feel like warriors. And they feel like they can do anything in the world because that's how I feel.
If we can believe in our own value, then we won't try to denigrate and diss and just roast women all the time.
I thought I had everything going for me. I wasn't listening to nobody. And my dad was like, 'Uh-uh, you can't make money from music. You have to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer. Something that's going to do something for this world. Music doesn't do anything.' And I had to fight that, his passion, and fight the society that I was from.
When I originally came to the U.S., my mother came with a couple hundred dollars to her name. I didn't know we were struggling because she hid that from me. But it was definitely a struggle to get through life and get through school.
