People might say I’m difficult, but did you ever hear anyone describe a label as ‘difficult’? By nature, artists should challenge. When they call you difficult, it is a reflection of the imbalance of power.
If you know people with Type 2 diabetes, there’s a high likelihood they will have different medication regimes and different lifestyle options. When we label all these various types as the same thing, we treat them the same way, and they should not be treated the same way.
One of the reasons I started Tzadik, which is my own label, is to keep things in print. I got tired of labels dropping things out of print when they don’t sell.
I’m always connecting with what society would label the outcasts and the weirdos and the lost souls.
What does New York sound like? For me, the Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost recordings on the Savoy label are the total embodiment of the New York music experience.
A lot of things encouraged me to start my label. I think it’s very important for an artist to know how many records they’ve sold and where they’ve sold. I know that I have never been treated the way I’m supposed to be treated – like an artist. That’s why I do things for myself. I feel like I’m a free man.
Obviously, for Geffen, if it wasn’t for us, it’s quite possible that bands like Nirvana or Beck would not be on the label.
At some of my earliest shows, we used to roll up 20 deep – if my mates can’t come in, I can’t come in. My record label couldn’t understand it: plus-19 on the guestlist?! But that was how it was. Over the years – as it is with everyone, but amplified from being in the public – it’s got smaller and smaller.
I signal with an independent label, Continuum. After that I put out a totally independent record, sold fourteen thousand of them from my basement, bought a house, started raising my kid, made a decent living.
People always try to pigeonhole you, especially the media, who are happy if they can label you as a particular kind of artist. But the spectrum of songs I write and record is vast.
I really don’t think we should label models as ‘plus’ or ‘runway.’
With In the Company of Men, the misogynist label stuck early and firmly. In the end, it probably did hurt the film a bit, because getting women into the theaters was difficult.
With any body shape it’s important to buy the right size and not be dictated to by size you think you are. Try on a bigger and a smaller size in the shop and see what fits visually. If you do have to go up a size, cut the label out, it’s just a number!
Where writers are from is one of the world’ s most boring topics. Where we’re born, gender or race, wealth or poverty – those are the things we spend time talking about. Stop trying to label me. I’m a writer. Worry about whether I’m any good!
I don’t necessarily take issue with the label ‘conservative journalist,’ but I never particularly use that to describe myself. But I guess the values and principles that I have may be aligned with issues that are either seen as center or center-right.
You can’t come out on a record dissing the system and be on a label that’s connected to the system.
I never thought I would get signed to a label.
I started doing some demos and got online and bought a refurbished laptop, bought a microphone off of eBay. A lot of folks said you can’t really do it that way at a pro level, but I did some vocals that way, turned it into the label and they said, ‘Wow, where did you record this? The vocals sound great!’
We have stigmatised sleep with the label of laziness.
What I learned from the Beastie Boys was to be independent. They set up their own world separate from the label. They built their own studio.
I don’t put a very clear label on my work. If anything, I write science fiction – looking at a moment now, in the present, and then extrapolating outward to think about what the future might look like if this particular trend goes on, or if this particular trend is the most dominant. That’s a science fictional tool.
The fashion industry may persist to label me as ‘plus-size,’ but I like to think of it as ‘my size.’
When I was younger, coming up in this industry, I was 17, 18 years old. You couldn’t tell me Beyonce wasn’t my friend. You couldn’t tell me that Janet Jackson wasn’t my girl. You couldn’t tell me that once I signed to my label that me and J.Lo weren’t going to have tea in L.A.
Boys do not evaluate a book. They divide books into categories. There are sexy books, war books, westerns, travel books, science fiction. A boy will accept anything from a section he knows rather than risk another sort. He has to have the label on the bottle to know it is the mixture as before.
When I first started my graphic design career, and ‘Beach Culture’ magazine, I pretty much ran from the surfer label. It was hard to get people to take you seriously.
I founded my label last November called Icy, and once my foundation is laid, I’d love to go back and help other artists and give them the opportunity that I wasn’t given at a younger age.
Death Row had a lot of artists. They had Snoop, the Dogg Pound, the Lady of Rage, and there was other artists that was also on the label, so it was a big list and a long wait. I didn’t want to wait that long, so I started branching off and doing my own thing.
My father was the first entrepreneur in the family. He started his own record label, his own restaurant. He knew that, in order to give something back to the people, he had to create.
Everyone wants to label me, but I don’t want to be labeled as a rapper or a movie actor.
I’ve always had a love for poetry and when I got signed to a record label I thought, ‘How odd that I’m doing a record before a book of poetry,’
What I do is I really enjoy and appreciate the challenge of songwriting and singing and performing and just being really, really grateful at all times. Also, I have no fear or problems with saying no and setting boundaries, you know, with the label, with my management.
I just am who I am. And then when people label me eccentric or different, I’m kind of astonished because I think, ‘This is completely normal. This is just how I am, it’s how I’ve always been.’
I want to have a publishing company and a record label, and I want to manage five artists… eventually.
The Big Machine Label Group will continue to knock down doors to break female talent.
I am a middle-class black, a college professor, far from wealthy, but also well removed from the kind of deprivation that would qualify my children for the label ‘disadvantaged.’
The control game has just been changed. The artist has a lot more control than the label, which is special. I feel like the fans crave that. I feel like they can tell when it’s not genuine.
I’m the type of person that doesn’t like to wait for people to do things for me, and I never want to feel stuck. Why sit around and be like, ‘I wish my label would book me some studio time,’ if I can just buy my own studio equipment and figure out how to run Pro Tools and record it myself?
Jimmy Iovine has been telling me since 2012 that I needed to start my own label with my own artists. This was when he first met me and ‘Bandz a Make Her Dance’ was first taking off.
I remember when I first came out as an artist, back in 2004 or 2005, the record label used to take me to all the radio stations and just have me sit in, like, their lunchroom or their conference room, and play for the whole staff. Just to introduce them to me so they would play my records.
I’m really excited because Interscope is really focused on artists. They’ve been working side by side with me creatively and allowing me to make a lot of the creative decisions, which you don’t always hear about. That’s why I didn’t want to sign originally with a major label.
I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist – he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (DSM-5) – but the label gets us only so far.
I was pretty sheltered growing up. I just started getting into heavier music with the Tooth & Nail/Solid State era, which really kind of brought this whole thing to life for me, so I am really thankful for that label.
I’ve always been independent with my music. I’ve always run my own music label.
I am not into marriage. You look at all the marriages breaking down and all the people cheating on their marriages, and you become cynical. Marriage is nothing but a label.
I’m typically attracted to men or male-identified people 99% of the time. But I guess if I had to pick a label for it, I don’t know know… ‘Gay’ doesn’t really work anymore because it means when a man loves a man, and I don’t feel like a man. That doesn’t super work for me anymore.
If you ever want to know why I’m not on a record label, look at ‘The X Factor!’ Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.
The thing that we need to move on from is any time you meet somebody, we always say, ‘Oh, this is my friend so-and-so. And, you know, he’s a Republican.’ You know, we always label each other as a liberal or as a conservative or as a Democrat or as a Republican.
Nobody from my label called any of their labels to get this done. Most of it happened very naturally. Mary and I have been friends for a long time. Then Jay-Z offered.
I bring in the record label who distributes the music.
