Mike Posner

“People like me for my songwriting and production, not my singing.”

“I was really lucky to grow up in an extremely diverse neighborhood.”

“When I went to college, I made my first mixtape, and Sean gave me three verses for it. That was a big reason anyone ever listened to my music. I definitely wouldn't be talking to you now if it wasn't for Big Sean.”

“If my career was a basketball season, I'm in the pre-season still. I'm not blowing everybody out by 40 - there's so much work to be done, and there's no time to really sit and look back and be proud of what I've done yet, because it's the pre-season still.”

“I didn't give myself enough love, so I was searching for it in other places, and it was a never ending struggle.”

“I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning.”

“I remember with my first album, I was so scared of messing it up, of blowing the opportunity, that I blew it.”

“My favorite Duke player ever is Steve Wojciechowski. He called me one day congratulating me on my success thus far, and I was like,'I appreciate it, but man, please don't congratulate me. I know when you guys start the season, you're not just trying to be 10-10 or ACC champions, you're trying to win it all.'”

“I feel like my best music is still ahead of me, and I can't wait for everyone to hear it.”

“Nothing means more to me than making the best music and me getting better as a writer and producer... I want you to know I work really hard. The bar is really high.”

“What I'm trying to do is maintain some mindfulness about being popular - I wasn't so great at that last time around.”

“If a song about blowing your shot becomes popular, that's really funny.”

“Some of my early musical memories are attached to grunge.”

“It's like, we all grow up thinking it would be so nice to have hundreds of people falling over themselves trying to grab us, telling us we're great, that they love us.”

“When you know it's a game, you can have more fun playing it. When things seem serious, you tend to take less risk and have less fun.”

“I had an initial wave of popularity that, in time, crashed, and I slowly became less popular and less successful, and I had to figure out who I was without those things.”

“I want to headline Bonnaroo. I just want to do it more than anything in the world.”

“From what I understand about Shakespeare - which isn't a lot - there was no copyright law when he was writing. He sampled at will, and it wasn't seen as a bad thing.”

“In my short career, I tend not to repeat myself. I have no interest in redoing something. Sometimes that makes people angry, and maybe it's not the best thing for me commercially. But it's the best thing for me artistically, and it's the best thing for my heart.”