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I Kinda Went Back To That Period Between '88 And '94 Where I Felt Like I Was The Most Creative, Without Being Hindered By Powers That Be. I Was No Longer Going To Try To Hinder Myself To What I Thought Was Going To Be On The Radio.

-Brian McKnight

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I Kinda Went Back

Brian McKnight

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I Kinda Went Back To That Period Between '88 And '94 Where I Felt Like I Was The Most Creative, Without Being Hindered By Powers That Be. I Was No Longer Going To Try To Hinder Myself To What I Thought Was Going To Be On The Radio.

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Being A Musician, You Want To Be Able To Do The Hardest Stuff There Is. People Would Think It's Classical, But In Classical, It's All On The Page And The Difficulty Is Keeping Up With The Music.

You'd Hear Willie Nelson, Then Earth, Wind & Fire, Then Chicago, Then Billy Joel On The Same Radio Station. Nowadays, Everything Is Compartmentalized.

I Started As A Writer And When I Sent My Demos Out Everyone Wanted To Know Who Was Singing And If That Person Wanted A Record Deal.

There's Only One Thing That Everyone In This World Has In Common: Whether You Want To Love Somebody And You Want To Be Loved In Return.

I Grew Up In A Time Where Anything Was Possible.

You Can't Listen To What People Who Aren't Musical Have To Say. When Anytime Was Released, I Had Bad Reviews, And At First I Was Hurt. Your Songs Are Like Your Children. You Don't Want To Hear, 'your Kid Is Ugly.' But I Knew The Record Was Good And It Would Sell.

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I Hate The Pigeonholing That's Happened In The Music Business In The Last 30 Years.

Every Song That I've Done Is Me In One Way Or Another.

Every Little Kid That Steps On The Court Or The Field Has Aspirations To Go Pro. I Think Being A Pro Basketball Player Is The Best Job. The Thing I Had To Realize Was That I Can't Do Every Dream That I Have.

By 17, I Had A Whole Band That Would Go In And Play. It Was Called Spontaneous Inventions, After A Bobby Mcferrin Album.

I'm Not Thinking About What Needs To Be On The Radio. I'm Not Thinking About Anything Other Than - I'm Just Going To Let This Music Come Out Of Me And Not Have Any Sort Of Preconceived Notion Of What I Should Do. I'm Just Going To Do It.

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You Know, Most Of My Career I Wrote About Moments In Time. All Of Us Have Felt One Thing Or Another And It Didn't Last Very Long. Now I'm Drawing From Real Experience. It's A Huge Difference.

For Me Able To Do The Records I Want To Do And Not Have To Worry About This Producer Or That Producer Or That Trend, I'm Not Really Interested In That.

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Everything I Have Now Is So Real, So Vivid.

I Wanted To Put Jazz On The Record, All The Loves Of Music That I Had On The Record, So I Could Show People I Was Ahead Of My 19 Years. It May Have Been Over The Heads Of Some People.

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I've Always Been Serious About Music. After You've Done It For So Many Years, You Get Back To The Basics.

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