Rich Brian

“I remember in Indonesia, there was this actor in a film that got pretty big internationally, and he went to Hollywood. Seeing an Indonesian guy doing that when I was 13 or 14, it really moti...”

“I'm inspired by a lot of things. I came from Indonesia. I grew up watching a lot of YouTube videos and was inspired by all these other things. I just love making music. I don't think I'm try...”

“One day, I was just thinking about something, and then - you know when you think, and you have that inner voice in your head? I realized it was in English.”

“My sister sings, and my brother plays the keyboard.”

“I like lyrical rappers and turn up rappers.”

“I'm really not a materialistic person.”

“One thing about Indonesians is that a lot of them, even if they don't understand English, have absolutely no problem memorizing English songs. Even my dad.”

“It doesn't really bother me if people misunderstand me. It's cool, but you can't do anything about it.”

“I've known about hip-hop for a long time. The first time it intrigued me was when I saw this music video by Tyga on television. I was intrigued by the whole aesthetic. It was very unique.”

“I grew up in West Jakarta, in a middle-to-low-class neighbourhood.”

“Some fan literally broke into my house. He literally came in and said, 'I'm a huge fan. I brought you food.' He brought me three boxes of noodles.”

“Honestly, I'm not a big activism or politic guy. I wouldn't say I'm super educated in that stuff, and I feel like I shouldn't speak on things that I don't understand too much.”

“At, like, 11, I think, that was just me watching a lot of YouTube videos, and I whenever I had the chance, I would talk to myself, practise pronunciation. Then I found out about hip hop and...”

“I started making raps in 2014, recording stuff from my iPhone and putting them together in Sony Vegas, which is a video editing program.”

“When you listen deeply to a song, you find all the little sounds they use and subconsciously learn how to produce and mix.”

“I was, like, 12 or 13; the first hip hop song I tried to rapping to was Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop,' and my English was so bad, but learning to rap to different songs really helped me with my...”

“'Dat $tick' was the first song I tried to be serious on. Then I thought, Wow, what if I really did this seriously? How dope would that be?'”

“I made a Twitter account when I was 10 years old. I wasn't even trying to be funny. I was still tweeting in Indonesian. I didn't really speak English yet.”