Dear Universe,

Just wanted to let you know how thankful I am that I get to converse and collaborate with inspiring, creative, innovative individuals every single day. I pinch myself over and over to make sure I’m not dreaming. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to ask: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? I will be forever that inquisitive kid questioning and trying to understand the world, my place in the world and myself. Thought I’d share a mash-up of some of the punk rock wisdom and hip hop insight I’ve gained on my journey:

Art by Sodium Gum

Tim Armstrong’s greatest aspiration as an artist:

To keep playing music; that’s what we [Rancid] love, that’s what we do. I have new ideas, always new things. People always ask me ‘Is Operation Ivy gonna get back together?’ You know they’re my homies—Matt Freeman is my brother—but it’s like, ‘Nah man, I’m on to something new. I want to do new shit.’ …to live a good life and take care of myself and have my friends and family around me. I’m blessed to still have my family here. My dad and mum are still here and still been married after 50 years. My brother got back from Iraq. My other brother is one of the bookers at Gilman Street. As an artist I just want to keep doing new shit. I got some ideas, always! They never stop… I love playing music! That’s my number one thing. It’s all I have ever done.

Art by Satchoo

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien on success:

It’s achieving a goal that you set for yourself, that goal may not be money. For me, Eleventh Hour was a successful endeavour. It had a lot more to do with me and what was going on in my life than trying to sell the album for money. It wasn’t about that. It was about getting this knowledge in my head to work out everything I need to. It came out dope. On this album I was right there, concentrated and focused. I didn’t want this album to be scattered—that took a lot of work. After years of not focusing and just doing it… I’m used to just doing… after a while I figured that wasn’t enough. I felt like I had to put more effort into it. Realising that was successful to me. There was a lot of things around me that tried to stop me. I just kept going. Now I’m ready to go after more success. I’ve grown.

Art by Ktharsis

Glenn Danzig on what motivates & inspires him:

Anger [laughs] and frustration at how stupid people still are [laughs] but you know what? I read a lot of books from centuries ago and people were stupid then and then they’re still stupid now a hundred years later! They don’t learn. Only a select, I won’t say handful ’cause it’s more than that but, some people are just happy meandering through life and not having to think about anything or have any responsibility for their actions. They don’t want to know either. They just want to wander through life and get their pay check at the end of the week and that’s it. That’s fine but that shit just boogles my mind. I could never go through life like that.

Art by Juart Little

Pharoahe Monch on what it means to be an artist:

It means everything because I don’t think that you can use that term loosely in the art world period. I don’t think that everyone that calls themselves artists is that. You could be an act signed to a label but that definitely doesn’t define you as an artist to me. To me an artist is a person who is instrumental in being groundbreaking and trying to push the envelope and that are very instrumental in what they write and the music choices that they make – they can make you feel a certain way. They’re definitely not cookie cutter; they have a long shelf life.

Love you lots!
Much gratitude,

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