Top 55 JPEGMAFIA Quotes

One consistent good thing I can say about the music industry is that at least I can make music freely now, and I don’t have to do it when I’m off of a nine to five shift or something.

Now that I have a little platform, and there are more eyes on me to release something, all that does is challenge me and put me under pressure, and I love being under pressure, especially musically. I might fail, but I’m excited about the possibilities.

If I wasn’t making music I’d still be listening to it and talking about it. That’s why I’m able to chill with Denzel Curry and then Jeff Tweedy, because the thing that’s linking us is music.

I grew up in Flatbush, Queens, Laurelton. These are places where it’s mostly black and there was a lot of diversity.

The idea of me being an icon or something is a very funny thing, just because of my own weird insecurities. But, yeah… probably because I toiled away being nothing for so long.

When you’re you long enough, you get to this space where people start respecting you.

When I die, I want people to be like, ‘Respect the music.’ I don’t really care if you hate me or like me – what I want badly is the validation and respect of the people.

If you listen to my music, you know who I’m talking to, what I’m talking about, and exactly what my message is.

In my opinion, the most dangerous thing an artist can do in this day and age is not embrace the present.

I’m an artist but I’m also a real person. I have bills like everyone else.

On ‘Black Ben Carson,’ I had strict no melody thing. I wanted straight, raw, rugged noise music.

I been compared a lot to Brockhampton a lot.

A lot of these dudes in metal, they’re just mad at the world because, like… who even knows?

I enjoy making music more than anything in the world. It’s the only thing that it’s felt the same since I was like 15.

I’m aware that if I make a country album and release it, and it gets on the Grammys, the Grammys are going to put it in the Urban category. Just my blackness automatically sets it in there.

I’m going to shock you with the truth. I’m just going to give it to you raw, and however you take it, I’m just going to watch your reaction.

Originally my entire goal with music was for it to be my job. When I sit down to make a beat, I wanna know that I’m gonna get paid from it, and that I can pay my bills and still have money left over to be a person.

I love Baltimore, I miss the people, but I think L.A. is way more chill.

I don’t think any other place puts out music with no promise of success and still works like Baltimore.

Well, me and Freaky been knowing each other for a while, and he was always playing crazy music in his room, but he would never release it. He’s, like, the most underground rapper I know, and he’s crazy talented.

The intention behind ‘Prone!’ was to make a punk song with no instruments.

My music experience living in Baltimore was life-altering. To this day, there is no scene that works as hard or puts as much effort into their art.

I don’t know if there’s anything Kanye West can do that can erase his influence on me, because it’s here. It’s already there. He can’t even reverse that himself, because it’s just so ingrained in me.

Liberals allow right-wingers on their platforms to have a ‘civilized discussion,’ but there’s no reasoning with racists. I don’t want them to have a platform that humanizes them. I want to talk down to them and meet them exactly where they are, with absolutely no respect.

Baltimore has the hardest work ethic out of all cities. It makes you want to work harder.

I like for things to be judged fairly.

When I first started rapping, I used to just jock Jay Z super hard. Back when I was like 14 and 15, it was, like, Jay Z, Ice Cube, and Lil Wayne.

I don’t have a manager who’s secretly on Interscope. I’m the complete opposite of an industry plant.

I was born in 1989. I literally watched ‘Rocko’s Modern Life’ on live television.

Everything I say is true and from the heart. I exaggerate some things, but the core base of it is just facts.

Either people cling to the past and refuse to advance their ways, or they’re always looking to future and not appreciating what’s in front of them right now.

I’m not some patriot. I didn’t have some yearning to defend my country or anything. I was poor.

The first time I ever went to Texas was on a bus with curtains draped over the windows. I just joined the military and got shipped off to basic training in San Antonio.

It just seems like Baltimore, talent-wise, nothing can touch it.

I think it’s important for black people in general to be aware of what’s going on and do what you got to work around it. Not bow down to it publicly.

When I first heard ‘Pearly Gates’ by Mobb Deep and 50 Cent growing up, the rapper Prodigy had a line about wanting to beat Jesus up. I wasn’t religious, but I’d never been introduced to something like that. I was scared and mad, but then I asked why I felt like that.

The first thing I ever put on the Internet was actually a beat tape, but the first thing I ever put on where I was rapping was called ‘Generation Y,’ and it was hella political.

Everyone has a little niche in rap, and I just wanted to carve a piece out of it for myself.

I’d never been to a festival till I played one.

There’s just more emotion and raw feeling in Baltimore music. It can’t be copied.

Baltimore’s just like, it’s like being in prison but being on the yard the whole day.

Whoever likes my music, I’m gonna reciprocate that same love back to them. I’m not trying to alienate anybody.

I honed my craft in the military, because it’s the only thing that got me through it, to be honest. Working on music – being able to come home and work on music whenever I got off – was essential. If I didn’t have that, I probably would’ve lost my mind.

Back in the early 1980s when rappers couldn’t perform in the fancy venues because the police were too racist and scared, it was the punk venues letting them in to perform.

After the military, I floundered around between jobs for a while, and there was an opportunity for me to go live in Japan. I was living on the Okinawa Airport Base, off the grid, no real address.

We need true free thinkers, people who really say what they feel and have good, genuine intentions.

Veteran’ is an exercise in editing because there is a lot of moments I took out and some that almost didn’t make it.

I want to work with Danny Brown but also Cannibal Corpse and Maroon 5.

People in rock had this idea that rappers aren’t talented. In my opinion we’re better writers, we think deeper, and our concepts are harder – Rap evolves faster than any other genre.

For me, sampling is a high art. Most people don’t see it that way, but it’s a beautiful thing. I wouldn’t know anything about music if it wasn’t for samples.

I am used to making people upset and uncomfortable with my lyrical content when it comes to music.

Punk is all about doing what you want and being yourself. And that’s what rap is too.

When I take from my influences, it’s rare that I do it literally.

America to me is where I grew up: in Brooklyn, around other black and Latino people who helped and loved each other. I just want to show people that America doesn’t have to be this ‘I’m in the NRA, blah blah blah’ type of place.

The way I make music, I know what I’m doing, because I been doing this for so long. This is the only thing I’m good at.