I see myself as a hip-hop artist, but I never wanted to make music for a specifically white audience. Thats not what I grew up around.
In my opinion, creative control means a lot, I feel like I'm really in touch with who my fans are and what they like about my music, and I'm able to communicate directly with them.
I don't know if most people know it or not, but I produce, like, 95% of my own stuff.
'Runaround Sue' was a big record for me, as well as the music video for it.
I grew up in Oakland and Berkeley, California.
My mom would always play me a lot of late-'50s, late-'60s rock.
London, from the architecture to the culture to the fashion to the accents, feels like it's a special place.
I think, back in the day, when I was first starting to make music, all I wanted to do was to get a record deal.
I've dreamed of being on the road, traveling and touring, for as long as I've been into doing music. It's what I live for. I just wanna be Willie Nelson.
Music isn't selling like it used to, but the one thing you can't steal or download is a live show experience or a T-shirt.
I've gone on in front of a crowd of 10 people and 7,000 people.
I think if you're constantly reinvesting into your content and giving the fans stuff, then you can continue to tour. You can continue to sell the merch and monetize the popularity of the brand.
It was inspiring to see local legends like E-40 and Keak da Sneak break out with 'Tell Me When to Go.'
My whole career has been from scratch, so I never took it for granted that people care and support what I do.
I was fortunate to have teachers that were flexible with allowing me to miss more class than I was supposed to be able to, for the sake of being able to tour.
When you're around somebody like E-40, all you can do is watch and learn, and soak up game.
My mom was a single parent.
I had a job since I was old enough to work - since I was, like, 14.
I see myself as a hip-hop artist, but I never wanted to make music for a specifically white audience. That's not what I grew up around.
In the past, my process would start with a sample of another song, and I'd chop it up and use that as the basis of the song that I was making.
When I first decided I wanted to make beats and write songs and stuff like that, it wasn't like I sat down and the first thing I wrote was even halfway legit. It took a while to find my way through it.
I didn't grow up around all white people; I never wanted to gentrify hip-hop, I've never wanted to speak to an all-white audience.
When I started making music, I was so heavy into the hyphy movement. That's something you only know so much about if you were right there living in it, submerged in the culture.
You have an entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that music is something that you can download for free.
I just kept telling myself that ultimately, the money that my grandparents had put away to go into my college fund, that they were investing for me to go to school and get this education, it had to be worth something.
I'm not on the radio all day long. I'm not on TV.
You have this ability in hip hop to be invincibly cool, and that is a part of G-Eazy.
I hate picking out clothes.
Touring is starting to feel more like home than home does.
I'm on Tumblr all the time.
I think when you're telling a story from inside of you that's genuine, people connect with it.
Word of mouth is the most valuable form of marketing, but you can't buy it. You can only deliver it. And you have to really deliver.
Keeping in touch with the people that matter is important.
Just wearing all black comes from Johnny Cash. I'm on the road so much that if I wear all black, my clothes never get dirty. You can't tell if I've worn the same shirt twice.
Something I stand for is being brave enough to invest in creative ideas that I firmly believe in and bringing those to life.
I was slicking my hair back when I was in sixth grade.
I think it's natural for a creative to be sensitive. If I'm in the studio and I write something, I think it's the greatest thing in the world; it's like my baby. I just made something out of thin air that exists now in a tangible form. It's the biggest thrill in my life.
I try to find 15 minutes a day to just be alone without any distractions just for headspace to meditate and get my Zen on. I think that helps me get through the hecticness of the day on tour with the interviews, the sound check, the meet and greets, the show and the post-show meet and greets.
I always thought that one day I would be somebody. I would be successful in music, and I would have fans that cared about my music. At the same time, I really feel like an ordinary guy; I have been an ordinary guy forever.
When you sample something, you're using the crutch of borrowing chords and melodies from a song that's already great, that's already stood the test of time, that's already special. When you're trying to do it all from scratch, you're writing something brand new that has to stand on its own.
I know what it feels like to walk out in front of a sold-out crowd of a thousand people that are there for you, and how good that feels, but as an opener, you just have to train yourself to think that it's going to be harder.
I read the Steve Jobs book, and that kind of changed everything. I've been, like, an Apple geek my whole life and have always seen him as a hero. But reading the book, and learning about how he built the company, and maintaining that corporate culture and all that, I think that influenced me a lot.
What's weird is the Hot Boys and the whole New Orleans Cash Money thing had a really big impact on the Bay when that was popping off. I don't all the way understand it. I mean, I know that they were big everywhere and had a lot of commercial success in the mid to late '90s, but they were really, really felt in the Bay Area.
