It's such a relief for me to sit in front of a tape recorder and not be using it to learn my lines.
Somebody talked me into writing an autobiography about six or seven years ago. And I said I'd try. We talked into a tape recorder, and after a couple of months, I said, To hell with it. I was so depressed. It was like saying, 'This is the end.' I was more interested in what the hell was coming the next day or the next week.
Music always hits me when I'm driving so I keep a recorder in my bag.
I think it was, my parents got me a karaoke machine when I was about 9 years old. Even before that, they got me a tape recorder that I used to walk around my life with. And there was something about recording and then hearing myself back.
My mom was working through my childhood, so I would be running around Mumbai from one dance class to another with my mom carrying the tape recorder with me. I would sit on the sidelines and watch her teach dance.
I used to record songs, like, play the beat from one phone and have another phone recording me and just rap. Moving from that to a studio was like, 'Damn, I never knew I could sound like this.' It was just magic.
What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.
Believe it or not, most people think of me as a recording artist, but actually the way I think of myself and the way I earn my living is as a performing artist.
The transition from fan to performer to recording artist, for me, was like learning how to dive... and each board got higher and higher.
Due to my work as a musician, songwriter, recording artist and author, hundreds of people stream in and out of my basement studio to help me with my creative projects.
It wasn't not being famous any more, or even not being a recording artist. It was having nobody who needed me, no phones ringing, nothing to do. Because I'm still too young to do nothing. I was only 24 when all that happened. Now, at 40, I feel I've got more to give than I ever have.
When I look back at those pictures of my mother performing - and listen to her recordings - it makes me sad to think that all of that joy she found in her work came to an end. I wish she hadn't had to make that sacrifice, even if it was for the benefit of my father and siblings and me.
The really amazing part, to me, was when Florida made it into the Final Four, the Democrats didn't demand a recount.
When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.
'The Wall' doesn't recount a specific soldier's experience in Iraq, but it captures the spirit of many experiences that were shared with me and with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and with John Cena.
I'm a recovering jersey wearer who can't bear to get rid of the blaze-orange Knicks warmup top that makes me look like James Carville on a highway repair crew.
Nothing on 'Relapse' and very little on 'Recovery' was produced by me.
Like many kids, I was thrown into recreational soccer in my town, and from there, I grew to love it. Everywhere I went, I carried a soccer ball with me.
Straight edge came out of the hardcore scene. I don't necessarily believe, as some people believe, that you have to be a part of the hardcore scene to share that philosophy and stance against recreational drug use. But it is where it came from, and it is where it influenced me to be a part of it.
I can remember loving to recruit. I knew I was going to do my best. But traveling and recruiting doesn't appeal to me any more. It's not as much fun as it used to be.
