Sir Mix-a-Lot

“Yeah, I put out some goofy stuff. I had no idea who I was as an artist at all before 'Posse on Broadway.'”

“I tell people all the time, I'm Mix-A-Lot. I'm not a rocket scientist.”

“When I came out with 'Posse on Broadway,' I decided, enough with trying to imitate New York, enough with trying to imitate L.A., let's just be Seattle. And rock, grunge, followed right after 'Posse on Broadway' and Seattle just exploded.”

“Pop concerts create an audience for Pops concerts, not an audience for classical symphonic concerts.”

“What I liked about grunge was the realness. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't glamorous.”

“I have never met a successful person who talked about failing. The glass is always half full. I don't even like being around negative talkers.”

“After 'Return Of The Bumpasaurus' in '96, I just got away from music for, like, a year. Literally, I think I produced two songs in a year. I was totally kicking it, running around.”

“Do I do bar mitzvahs? No. You know, you've gotta draw a line somewhere.”

“In hip-hop, what you have is you have a lot of formulaic-type bands or rappers that come up. They saw something on the radio, and they want to mimic that formula. And that's just boring. I don't wanna record something just to make money; I want to record something to enjoy it and have fun because I'm a music lover.”

“I tried gimmicky stuff 'cause I wanted to get some attention, and remember, you know, in the rap world Seattle was a cave. There was no light.”

“Most of my money is more brand association deals. I own my publishing so that's allowed me to leverage my brand in ways that most people cannot or will not because they won't make any money doing it.”

“I'm not really a Democrat or a Republican, but I don't like rhetoric.”

“I follow politics in a big way, and always have since I was a kid. I've got opinions, but they're opinions on both sides - not just anti-Republican, which is a real popular thing for a rap artist to do. If you dis Republicans, nobody will get mad. I think the two-party system sucks. It's absolutely ignorant.”

“When I did 'Baby Got Back,' that was just a reflection of the African-American community. We've always liked curves, and a lot of people misunderstood it because let's face it: 20 years prior to 'Baby Got Back,' the only images you saw of a black woman on television were she was probably 300 pounds and cleaning the house with a rag on her head.”

“Inventors often don't know how to pitch their ideas. So many people in Silicon Valley want to hear you say 'disruptive,' and tote a 'platform.' They repeat buzzwords over and over, and I think it intimidates a real inventor.”

“Successful people jump at opportunity and take advantage of it.”

“I thought the grunge scene was cool. This is going to sound weird, but I remember doing a concert at a tavern in the mid-'80s with Nirvana.”

“The only thing that doesn't drop in a down market is entertainment money.”

“I love listening to old school stuff. I listen to some new cats out here, but I'm really into, like, Tech N9ne and his clique; I really like Eminem and those guys - cats that got real flow: I really connect with that. But I do love rock. I love a lot of electronica because I love programming synthesizers.”

“I grew up listening to a lot of Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, Devo, all that stuff.”