The way we like to make music is we'll announce a project when there are zero songs, and then we take that pressure and try to make an album really fast.
— Kevin Abstract
We just want people to feel something that they've never felt before. Or at least, something they haven't felt since they were little kids.
Money makes it easier to dream.
I think we're always scared, but we have each other to lean on, so we're not being extremely vulnerable in front of the world by ourselves. We have each other.
I just always wanted to be part of something where I felt like I belonged.
I figured it out at a young age: I could meet as many young people online and try to form my own family or my own record label group.
NWA was all-American; Wu-Tang was all-American. It was just a part of America you may not have seen at the time.
I think the most important part of the teenage years is wondering.
As soon as I left Georgia, my narrative became about taking risks and the fight for creative bedroom artists with no platform.
I want kids to live through this character I've created. I want them to say that they are Kevin Abstract because they relate to it that much.
When you're bored, you get creative.
The biggest pop star in the world shouldn't be a boring white kid from Canada - the biggest pop star in the world should be a creative black kid from Texas that doesn't know how to come out to his family - that's a way more interesting story, and it gives a new type of kid some hope.
There are no rules when I'm making stuff. That's why I'm glad I'm not signed. No one's telling me I got to drop this type of single or this video.
I want to speak for people who can't speak; they're afraid to speak.
I don't want to be that artist who's doing the teenage angst thing and draw it out my whole career.
Me just existing and being myself is making change and making things easier for other young queer kids. I want to be me and express that and break new ground along the way.
I don't know what it is that I love so much about high school, but I'm attached. The empty hallways. The teachers. They made me feel so much.
Find people whose morals and vision align with yours, and follow that.
Whatever we were saying in our music had to represent something and really stand for something. I just wanted to do something with purpose.
I always wanted to make something that was bigger than me, that wasn't just one person.
Everything feels better in London. And if my life feels better, then it's easier to make music.
I've never seen a boy band that had members who look like us - kids of color from all over the world - and met on the Internet.
I feel like I would have been able to be the creative I am anywhere in America just because I have access to the Internet.
I want to give black kids a new superhero.
A lot of my music is about self-discovery because I focus on my teenage years.
I wrote 'Echo' a few months after moving out of my sister's apartment in Atlanta. I was 17 and just finished high school. I didn't go to prom and didn't walk the stage. I just dipped.
I'm super inspired by Master P and early moguls. They were doing everything. I wanna do that, too. Twenty-six albums in one year. It's possible. Very possible.
The underground always has the best ideas. Sometimes those underground artists transcend and make it to the mainstream, but most of the time, the big guys just steal from us.
No one in my family was creative. One of my sisters went to a university, and pretty much, most of my siblings live a basic and dull lifestyle.
I really want to only put out three projects from Kevin Abstract as far as solo bodies of work.
I know I'm not what everyone says I'm supposed to be. But I'm gonna say what I want, and this is me, and I'm gonna be American whether you like it or not.
The Kevin Abstract project kind of represents being socially awkward in high school, which I'm low-key kind of tired of.
I just want people to be able to put on 'American Boyfriend' and accept to not know. To not know anything about everything.
I just wanted to have my own dynasty. I wanted my own Cash Money or Roc-A-Fella. Outside of that, I also wanted my own media company.
I'm just super into redefining things.
We did what we wanted to do, made it work, and made our own rules - and the best art we could - along the way.
Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to start a record label.
We just want to uplift people, inspire people, and get people through their day.
I just want to be Kevin Abstract and exist and help as many people as possible who are struggling with whatever they're struggling with.
For some reason, being gay can be such a sad thing in media, so it's really cool to see someone like me who doesn't look like, I guess, the stereotypical gay guy.
It's OK to get your feelings hurt.
I'm always around creative people, and I'm trying to work on something constantly at all times.
I won't have a standout moment until I perform at the VMAs, meet Ryan Gosling, and hug Sky Ferreira.
Here's the thing: we don't write music for a universal statement; we just share our experiences. And that's all it is. It's always raw and very authentic.
Most of the time, with artists like me who go on to become superstars, you never see them when they are still lost and trying to figure life out.
Social media is awesome because I can somewhat paint myself the way I want people to see me.
I think it's awesome when you meet someone that can kind of just get you 110 percent, and no matter how long that lasts, you kind of just take it for what it is and embrace it.
I am everything Donald Trump is against.
Hip hop's all about expression. That's why I got into it.
It's always been my dream to come to L.A.
