Top 30 Labrinth Quotes

I want to be a little bit brave. I want to feel scared sometimes. That’s what’s going to change the music business, if we have that kind of attitude.

I never called myself an urban artist, but that’s what I was classed as, and I almost tried to live up to the name instead of who I really was.

Branding your song is the worst thing you can ever do. That’s turning your song into a product.

I have to be honest: I think production is mad – exciting – because, of course, you’re creating the record. When you’re a singer, you’re just singing. Creating the music, directing, and seeing where it’s gonna go in production is very, very exciting.

I have learned that while your putting your record together you can get so caught up in making what you want that you forget what you wanted in the first place.

I don’t see categories; I don’t see styles – l see them all gelled together. And it was gospel that definitely helped me to do that.

I don’t think about the success that I’ve had – I’ve had a lot of success with music – but I always look at it like it’s a new day.

I remember my brother came home with a bass and played a blues solo on it. I just went insane for days afterwards learning that.

I’m a musical geek. It’s like there’s this big, wild universe in my head, and I love to express it.

My main thing is I just want to share as much hope and happiness as possible for music. If I can share as many moments and help people believe in themselves… if I can do that, then I’ll feel like my job is done.

Different cultures produce a different ‘cool.’ And your perception of ‘cool’ changes depending on where you are.

When you make a record, I always imagine people dancing to it. If the chef thinks it tastes good, then there will be someone who ultimately believes the same thing.

I’ve made so many changes to my records because of the way the audience has reacted at the various festivals I’ve played – I’ve taken tracks back into the studio, stripped them bare, and built them back up again to create something entirely different.

Those that know me know that I’m not 100% in love with commercial pop music. It’s not my preferred genre – I don’t do squeaky clean pop.

You get so close to your own music that you can’t see the beauty in it. I had to learn to let go. It’s good to be less precious.

I’m all for trying anything once; otherwise, you end up like David Guetta – reproducing the same formula over and over.

You can’t go up to girls and start talking about minor 7ths and expect to pull. It’s not going to work.

I really enjoy ‘festival life,’ as it were, and I love the reactions when I bring out my guitar on stage. The crowd are always a bit like, ‘What the hell is this urban guy doing with a guitar,’ and that’s what I love – the shock element of it all!

I grew up not really having a father figure, and it didn’t bother me, because he wasn’t there in the first place. But then he started other families, and I was jealous. It was like he was happy without our family.

I’m from Hackney, and it’s an area that is not so pretty, and we have a different way of expressing ourselves than somebody from uptown that has lots of money.

Everyone in my family has been in music – my cousins, my grandmother, my grandfather – so it’s quite a big family tree.

One thing I always really enjoyed about Quincy Jones’ production technique was that there were so many layers to every song. Like, one week you’d hear a new trumpet-line, then the next week you’d hear – be hearing a new guitar-line.

The first tour an artist does is a strange one… because you can never tell how the audience is going to react.

My ethos is musical freedom: to create whatever I want.

I’m a perfectionist, and to actually finish something is good for me.

English urban artists were very used to making secondhand American music, and I thought that was boring.

I think producing a record for other artists is almost like giving them advice, and I would say that it is easier to produce another artist than it is to produce yourself.

Urban is not actually my world. It was me trying something out, basically. I come from a gospel background.

When I listen to a Coldplay record, you’re gonna hear an indie band, and you know that’s what you’re gonna get from Coldplay. With myself, I’m not sure it’s the same.

I try as much I can after every live performance to read all the comments my fans post on Facebook and Twitter, as this helps enormously for me to understand straight from fans what worked and what didn’t.