Quality cinema is not changing anything, everything is the same. The artistes and other people involved in these films get some recognition at international film festivals and award shows only.
I was never in music to make it to award shows.
Award shows are fun but completely arbitrary and absurd. And yet, I will watch every single one of them.
Entertainment, Hollywood, award shows - these are the things that really captivated me.
I was obsessed with award shows and made charts and graphs and stuff when I was 7 years old. I found the entertainment business hilarious, ridiculous, and alluring - and my parents supported it, for better or worse.
At first, when you go to premieres and award shows, you're thinking, 'How the hell am I here? All these people I've never met are here, and it's so cool!' And then, as time goes on, it's a little bit like, 'Ah... it's more like work.'
I go for a couple of parties; you won't find me at every film party and never at award ceremonies. I tried attending for the first three to four years, and I've performed at award shows. I sat in them, and I've also exited pretty fast from them. It's just not my place. I'd rather get their adulation in a cinema hall.
The stigma with country is it's not cool. That's wrong. Country is very cool. I look at award shows, I look at how country is represented. Country is represented with an asterisk. We have to perform collaborations. We have to perform a tribute. We can't perform by ourselves.
The hip hop industry is most likely owned by gays. I happen to think there's a gay mafia in hip hop. Not rappers - the editorial presidents of magazines, the PDs at radio stations, the people who give you awards at award shows.
I love what I'm doing most of the time, but it's hard work. People only see your albums in the charts. They see us at award shows and after-show parties. They don't know about your doubts, the hard work that goes in.
