Jidenna Quotes

A classic man is a distinguished man. He cares about taste and his craft. He's all about the simple model that I live by - eat, drink, be swanky, and have fun getting the job done. He makes sure that he's excellent in all things and that he cares about his neighborhood immensely.

- Jidenna

If I'm shopping at the Gap or Old Navy, I'm saying that I'm an ordinary person: I don't want to be seen; I don't want to stand out. That's a statement. If I'm wearing a leather jacket, there's something about me that's kind of a rebel. So everybody says something, whether they want to or not.

- Jidenna

A great tailor is like a great personal trainer - they tailor that suit to your natural physique.

- Jidenna

I think one of the things that I picked up from Nigeria is the constant pressure to be excellent. Parents drill in this responsibility towards family, but also a responsibility toward making sure your family name is heralded.

- Jidenna

I reached rock bottom halfway through college. And it was - because of all the pressure that I think we're talking about right now - the pressure to learn how to budget, the pressure to really abandon everything that you ever learned. You don't have a comfort zone anymore. You don't have your neighborhood. You don't have your family with you.

- Jidenna

All across this world, especially within the African diaspora, we feel like there is a constant devaluing of our culture and our livelihood.

- Jidenna

I was raised with a father who really believed in the bridge between all Africans around the world.

- Jidenna

America is haunted by an apparition steeped in slavery, and I wanted to remind everyone that, 'Yo, we've got to handle this.'

- Jidenna

Ever since the decision of Robin Thicke and Pharrell, we believe that it was important to make sure that we are safe. When that Robin Thicke verdict came out, we realized that the game had changed in music.

- Jidenna

I was born in Wisconsin, but I quickly moved to Nigeria as a toddler.

- Jidenna

The most important thing for me is the thing I strive for. But I also hope when I play my songs for people - adult, children, mostly children - that they feel mighty, they feel noble, they feel like warriors. And they feel like they can do anything in the world because that's how I feel.

- Jidenna

The one thing that I learned in college, actually, was that you may reach tremendous highs and tremendous lows.

- Jidenna

I'm the guy on the corner that is slightly peculiar but fun and funky.

- Jidenna

When I originally came to the U.S., my mother came with a couple hundred dollars to her name. I didn't know we were struggling because she hid that from me. But it was definitely a struggle to get through life and get through school.

- Jidenna

While the majority of my childhood memories are beautiful, I also have experienced the challenges that Nigeria has faced since independence.

- Jidenna

I myself have been scrutinized by militarized police, but I know officers who actually handle themselves in a certain way that makes me feel safe.

- Jidenna

One day, my mum bought me this music production software for my computer, and I started making beats... I realised it was more like production than a video game, but it was a video game when I was playing it. That's how I got into music production.

- Jidenna

Every single place that's brushed upon me has made me the artist that I am - from Nigerian Highlife music and the vocal melodies that I grew up on when I would be sitting with my father and his fellow chiefs, to the funk and freeness of the Bay Area groove, to L.A.'s smooth G-funk legacy, Brooklyn's lyricism, and now Atlanta's trap history.

- Jidenna

When hip-hop came along, men and women started dressing down as a form of rebellion.

- Jidenna

I started singing because it was a natural evolution in hip-hop to me. Without Prince, I wouldn't have embraced that. I wouldn't have been able to embrace me.

- Jidenna

First of all, I respect The Game. He's trail-blazed for artists like myself. I appreciate him, having - living in L.A. myself and knowing what he stands for and what he stood for.

- Jidenna

I am, always have been, and always will be proud of my Nigerian heritage.

- Jidenna

When I brought home a 98 percent on a test, my father would say, 'Ah, ah, where are the other two points? Go and get them, then bring them back.' My father and Nigerian culture has always stood for excellence.

- Jidenna

Even if the production doesn't feel African, the vocal delivery - singing through your nose. Specifically, Highlife music from Nigeria. That was the first music I ever heard as a child. So singing through my nose is something I do often, and that's directly rooted in my heritage.

- Jidenna

I think each artist lives with purpose. A strong sense of purpose. We know who's come before us.

- Jidenna

I've gone down several paths. I started school as an engineer, but underneath it all, I knew I wanted to use instruments, not build them.

- Jidenna

I began my studies in a sound and electrical engineering program, but I ultimately created a major called 'Ritual Art.'

- Jidenna

Not unlike our country's history, my personal history was founded upon an unfortunate history of racial conflict between black and white.

- Jidenna

I thought I had everything going for me. I wasn't listening to nobody. And my dad was like, 'Uh-uh, you can't make money from music. You have to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer. Something that's going to do something for this world. Music doesn't do anything.' And I had to fight that, his passion, and fight the society that I was from.

- Jidenna

I describe myself as a big kid with an old soul, I'm very playful whimsical, but I definitely have that old soul as well.

- Jidenna

Swanky means classy and funky.

- Jidenna

I feel like we haven't dealt with the ghosts of America's past, and the way to deal with it is to confront it, so every time people see me, I want them to be reminded and to confront that ghost.

- Jidenna

I think hard-core capitalism tends to commercialize everything.

- Jidenna

My nickname is 'Chief' because my father was a chief in Nigeria.

- Jidenna

If we can believe in our own value, then we won't try to denigrate and diss and just roast women all the time.

- Jidenna

The affinity towards suits was a functional thing for me early on because I was thrifting at secondhand shops, and it was also initially a way of grieving - my father had passed, and he used to wear suits all the time.

- Jidenna

There are always pluses and minus to commercialization. It broadcasts something to the masses. So that's the plus. The minus is it may lose some of its meaning if you dilute it.

- Jidenna

My father raised me to build computers, hardware. Literally, as an 8 year old, I had a soldering iron and circuit boards, and this was in neighbourhoods that wouldn't have a whole lot of money or anything. And I figured out ways to just hustle.

- Jidenna

The trick of Afrobeats is it doesn't just move your upper body, it moves your hips as well, and I think that's what people have been missing in popular music for a while. I think that's what people need around the world.

- Jidenna

I wanted to remind myself and others of the old Jim Crow, so that we can remind ourselves that we're still living in the new Jim Crow. I feel it's important to dress in the fashion of the times.

- Jidenna

My style is not specific to the antebellum South, but it's heavily inspired by the Jim Crow era.

- Jidenna

I work predominantly with tailors from Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal.

- Jidenna

Jesus' birthday is commercialized, so of course, Black History Month is commercialized.

- Jidenna

My name is Jidenna, which means 'to hold or embrace the father' in Igbo. It was my father who gave me this name and who taught me countless parables, proverbs, and principles that made me the man I am today.

- Jidenna

Does Martin Luther King really want his birthday commercialized?

- Jidenna

Yes, it's still a man's world, unfortunately, and we have a long way to go in this country and all countries - but there's something to be said for just feeling the spirit of a true man, and I think that's what 'Classic Man' speaks to.

- Jidenna

I think it's the job of the artist to reflect the times and also reflect his or her views of the world.

- Jidenna

I think a lot of people try to be someone else, and Young Thug really is who he is. I love his melodies, how he dresses, how he carries himself.

- Jidenna

In Brooklyn, all the kids call me the 'Willy Wonka of the Hood.'

- Jidenna

I've always been dabbling in suits, but like a lot of people in the neighborhoods I grew up in, I had my snapback; I had my v-neck. I still got them in the closet. I got my J's, my Forces; it was standard.

- Jidenna

If one door is closed, break a window anyway.

- Jidenna

I believe what Wondaland is doing is creating depth.

- Jidenna

I was raised in Nigeria, and my mother is white, but I never saw her as white, not until I came to America. She was just my mother. She didn't really have a color.

- Jidenna

We're social beings, and I need to know and remember where I came from.

- Jidenna

For me, it's important that as you're introducing yourself, you show different dimensions.

- Jidenna

Willy Wonka had his chocolate factory; I have my Fear & Fancy Parlor.

- Jidenna

People thought 'Classic Man' was processed. But then they realized, 'Oh, this guy actually is that man, and he actually dresses like that.'

- Jidenna

Most of the suits I try to wear are bespoke.

- Jidenna

I don't have one geographic location that I'm exclusively loyal to.

- Jidenna

California was special. It's a place where I learned how to be adventurous, both in style and fashion, but also in terms of the way I think.

- Jidenna

There was no question that I was going to school.

- Jidenna

Nothing I'm doing is without its predecessors.

- Jidenna

When I was a boy, I was sagging my pants like everyone else. Some boys become men and continue to sag their pants because that's their form of rebellion.

- Jidenna

For me, I wear a suit because I need to remember what's happened before me.

- Jidenna

I thought the suit was something that would suit me.

- Jidenna

Everything you touch touches you.

- Jidenna

I like quality over quantity.

- Jidenna

It's better to do your purpose imperfectly than to do someone else's purpose perfectly.

- Jidenna

Like most people, I had several awakenings.

- Jidenna