Hip-hop don't have no fresh energy, none at all. It's money driven, everybody tryin' to make that cheque, nobody putting art in their albums any more.
I don't see my artist friends as any more neurotic or addiction-prone than the others. The roommates I have had who were into triathlons or environmentalism were just as crazy as the poets, just as prone to tears over gardening or air conditioners, just as ready to kite a cheque or binge on cookie dough.
What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque.
I want the last cheque I write to bounce.
When you are facing the wilderness on your own, you have a totally different attitude to someone who works in government or who has a monthly cheque.
With my first pay cheque I sent my parents to Jamaica, so they actually got passports! They're pretty grounded; it wasn't until they saw the trailer for 'Battleship' that they were like, 'Ooh, this is a big movie, isn't it?'
$3,000 from a residual cheque was all I made one year.
Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.
I'm happy to sacrifice a big pay cheque for my happiness, if that's not too corny a thing to say. It's probably more naive than mature to say that, maybe, but that's how I feel.
The front of a cheque alone gives someone enough information to steal your identity.