I'm thankful enough or blessed enough to be able to say that Miles Davis was a friend when he was alive, and he was a wonderful mentor and really, really funny, you know.
— Prince
My father left his piano at the house when he left, and I wasn't allowed to play it when he was there because I wasn't as good as him. So when he left, I was determined to get as good as him, and I taught myself how to play music, and I just stuck with it, and I did it all the time.
Sometimes ideas are coming so fast that I have to stop doing one song to get another. But I don't forget the first one. If it works, it will always be there. It's like the truth: it will find you and lift you up. And if it ain't right, it will dissolve like sand on the beach.
You can't understand the words of Cocteau Twins songs, but their harmonies put you in a dreamlike state.
I always knew I had a relationship with God. But I wasn't sure God had a relationship with me.
It gets embarrassing to say something untrue because you put it online and everyone knows about it, so it's better to tell the truth.
When you don't talk down to your audience, then they can grow with you.
I don't want anyone to fail, so if you can make money off music even though you can't sing or dance, that's genius.
The hardest thing with musicians is getting them not to play.
Any business situation is restrictive.
YouTube is the hippest network, and they abuse copyright right and left.
I like Hollywood. I just like Minneapolis a little bit better.
Contrary to what a lot of people think, I haven't been domesticated.
Technology is cool, but you've got to use it as opposed to letting it use you.
I learned from Jimi Hendrix. They all wanted him to do the tricks, and at the end of his career, he just wanted to play. I lived longer than he did, and I can see how those pressures can really play with your head.
We have to show support for artists who are trying to own things for themselves.
Record contracts are just like - I'm gonna say the word - slavery. I would tell any young artist... don't sign.
I like constructive criticism from smart people.
When you sit down to write something, there should be no guidelines. The main idea is not supposed to be, 'How many different ways can we sell it?' That's so far away from the true spirit of what music is.
I always wanted to make a three-record set. 'Sign o' the Times' was originally supposed to be a triple album, but it ended up as a double.
I've always understood the two to be intertwined: sexuality and spirituality. That never changed.
I record all the time.
Hip-hop is very diverse, but if you only focus on one aspect of it, then what you get is this image of Black America that is completely contrary to what actually goes on.
I pride myself on working with great musicians.
Young people have decided they like to listen to music in a certain way, through ear buds, and that's fine with me as long as it doesn't bother them that they're not hearing 90 percent of the music that way.
I'm not entangled in a bunch of lawsuits and a web that I can't get out of. I can hold my head up... a happily married man who has his head in order. There isn't a bunch of scandal in my life.
My bankers are very happy with me.
Being a Jehovah's Witness, I don't celebrate birthdays or holidays. I don't vote.
You ever get that feeling that you just have too many hits?
People speculate on your personal life all the time anyway. So I just think it's important to keep my private life private and my public persona more into music, you know?
I've never stopped writing, never stopped recording.
The music industry is a matrix that is counter to what is natural and right.
I think you'll always be able to do what your ear tells you.
I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros.
I'm a fighter. I'm very competitive.
The music, for me, doesn't come on a schedule. I don't know when it's going to come, and when it does, I want it out.
People don't understand real musicians anymore. Jack White is great - he's the real thing - but he isn't having hits.
No one can come and claim ownership of my work. I am the creator of it, and it lives within me.
There are no great jazz-fusion bands.
I don't know who was the one that came up with the notion that you have to play the same songs every concert.
Most artists lose their voice, their hair, and their bands. That's not going to happen to me.
It's work to play the same songs the same way for 70 shows.
Every year, they ask me to play the Grammys.
I learned from Jehovah's Witnesses that a fatalistic view is counterproductive.
It might be a shock to see me, but that's no reason for people to act crazy, and it doesn't give them license to chase me down the street.
Instead of hate, celebrate.
'When Doves Cry' came out - it sounded like nothing that was on the radio. 'Let's Go Crazy' was number one on R&B stations, and there's nothing that's been like that on radio since.
If you lend your consciousness to someone else, you're a robot.
When I started playing music, people weren't selling 5 million records. That was not the standard; that was not the focus.
When I first started out in this music industry, I was most concerned with freedom. Freedom to produce, freedom to play all the instruments on my records, freedom to say anything I wanted to.
