G-Eazy

I think the most important thing is to be yourself and be genuine and don't try to tell anybody else's story but your own. And if it comes from a genuine place, I think people can tell, and if it doesn't, I think people can tell, and I think that eventually it shows.

It's one thing to turn up and jump around stage and give people a good time - that's obviously a big part of this - but I'll always get deeper than that as an artist.

I've never fit in anywhere in my life. Ever.

I've always been an outsider to some extent.

I actually went to high school with Lil Uno.

I'm just making music, and I'm paying my bills.

If you're not out living, then you've got nothing to talk about.

I grew up with the Pack. When they released 'Vans,' it was a seeing-is-believing moment.

When I was 12 or 13, the hyphy movement was beginning to bubble. And you had local acts such as the Federation or E-40, Mac Dre, and Too Short that the local radio station would play all the time. You'd hear E-40 as much as you'd hear Jay Z.

You don't need mainstream media outlets, the big TV looks, or the magazine covers.

You have to be dope; you have to find an audience and reach that audience with your identity and your message.

Some people will like it. Some people will hate it. Some people are indifferent. And you have to live with that as an artist. You wanna be appreciated, you wanna be liked, but you know, it's just not realistic for everyone.

I think my music is so personal that it lets people in. And they identify with me more because of that, you know, so it's like my story; it's who I am as a person.

Me personally, I'm real close to my mom. She raised me. It was a single-parent home situation. She did everything: cooked, worked two jobs, came home late, but she loved me to death.

Growing up in the Bay, I was still looking for a lot of East Coast hip-hop. I had an older homie put me on to a lot of stuff like Nas' 'Illmatic.'

My friends put me on to Mobb Deep when I was a little kid. I've always been a big fan.

I don't go in the studio to make music that won't matter. I go in every night to try to make a point and make the best music that I can make.

When you're making an album, it's, like, exciting every night you make something new, but you're the only one who gets to hear it.

Anything back in New Orleans is definitely nostalgic. I really played my first shows of my life and learned to perform here. I learned how to work a stage and how to connect with a crowd. It all started here.

When you're literally staring at the person right in front of you, you're connecting with them on a personal level. I even jump into the crowd sometimes and perform with them, sing into the mic with them and share the experience with them.

That raw connection between the two performers is something you can't fully plan. You just go with it and get lost in that moment and feed off of each other.

Albums serve as paragraphs in an artist's autobiography.

I played shows in front of like 25, 50 people, and it's a lot harder to do your thing in front of a crowd that's small.

For whatever reason, it's easier to perform in front of a massive crowd than in front of a small one, but again, that's how we came up.

We listen to oldies when we go on tour. Beach Boys radio was really clutch; that was definitely our favorite Pandora station.

I grew up in Oakland, California, and there was a really active scene in the Bay Area. Everyone else knew it as the 'Hyphy Movement' of Mac Dre, E-40, and The Pack.

We used to approach a small 400-person show like an arena show, as if I was a star and I was coming out on stage in front of screaming people and that I was to be larger than life.

It's our approach to treat each show like an arena show. We over-invest in production to make the stage look bigger, turning the show into an experience and not just somebody standing around with a microphone rapping.

If we're deciding about merch pieces, t-shirts or hats, they have to be well designed and cool enough for somebody to want to buy it and then wear it and walk around advertising me and my music.

As we've added players to the team, like a videographer, a drummer, or a sound guy, we're trying to keep a bus full of A players and keep a culture where everybody is comfortable enough to push each other in their areas to be great.

The Bay area made me who I am, and it only felt right to go back there.

My music is very reminiscent of the sound I grew up on and the place where that happened. It's a combination of everything I'm inspired by.

I don't want to be a small-time, independent, successful rapper.

The thing is, I've always wanted to be a star. I've always wanted to be an Elvis Presley or a Tupac - like, a huge icon.

What costs the world to you as a working kid fresh out of college costs nothing to you as a successful musician.

It's just crazy to look back at what I was wearing in high school.

When you use a sample in a big way, when you loop something in the way I did with 'Runaround Sue,' it's like you have your chords and your melody and the quality of the song right there before you add your own production. It's like the song is already made, in a sense.

Chance The Rapper makes some of the greatest music out, and he build his brand up organically, and the fans have reacted to it.

There's multiple ways I express myself. Music is my first love and will always come first. But, there are other areas and industries I'm interested in that reflect different aspects of my lifestyle.

I think every artist's next work will reflect a new chapter in their autobiography. Each album tells a story about where they were at during a particular period and how they have evolved.

I like to have a lot of girls over and play loud music.

I remember, when I was ten, I wanted to look like Em. I had the bleached blonde hair.

Much respect to Eminem - he's the greatest.

I'm the type of person that rises to the occasion, and when work is in front of me, I do work.

I'll be a Bay kid for the rest of my life. That's in my veins; that's in my bones.

You can tell when someone is reading the lines of a song or performing it.

It's definitely been a long, long... long, long, long, long, long journey since I was selling burnt CD's out of my backpack in downtown Oakland.

I've got some growing up to do.

Me personally, I will always be a fan at the end of the day. No matter how big this gets, I still look up to other artists and people I respect creatively.

Music is only special when it's coming from a genuine place - it's just energy trapped in a bottle.