What do you consider to be your greatest source of inspiration?
Life itself is my greatest source of inspiration, even for my personal life. I do draw from my personal life. I just don't make it so much about my life; I make it more about the situation.
Out of your catalog, my favorite song is "Betterman," which was on your fourth studio album, Luvanmusiq. I'm interested to learn about the inspiration behind it.
I was in the studio with Raphael Saadiq. The computer crashed and we were waiting for it to come back up. He was playing a crazy bass line on the guitar, so we jammed a little bit and started writing the song. I wanted "Betterman" to tell a story about the good part of a romantic relationship, one in which the person you're with inspires you to be a better person.
In the early part of your career, before you made it big, what driving forces motivated you to push on?
I ultimately pushed myself through it all, but I've been heavily inspired by a lot of the artists from the past – in the seventies, the people that I've been listening to. Artists like Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye – I was really inspired by them, so I always had them in mind in my endeavors of becoming a successful artist, not only in the music industry but in music itself, in the history of music, in the culture of music.
When you came out with "Just Friends" on Aijuswanaseing, you did a considerable amount of beatboxing. Was that influenced by a desire to play a musical instrument?
I had to do that to portray a musical instrument. Beatboxing was just my only way of doing because I wasn't really that good at playing an instrument at the time. I would just start beatboxing because I heard the music in my head and I just wanted to get it out more than just singing it. That was my version of singing the music.
If you could've played an instrument, what would it have been?
I love all kinds of instruments, but I probably would have picked up the keys or a bass.
In the past, you have tried to clarify the use of "Musiq" and "Soulchild" in your stage name. Musiq was pretty much the name of the business and Soulchild was the man inspired by the music. Today, how would you describe the evolution of your name?
There are two perspectives behind those two names. I've designated the Musiq part of the name as the recording artist being in this business to be progressive commercially as well as creatively. The Soulchild part was the part that's designated for the perspective of just contributing to the culture of music. Unfortunately, in this industry because of the way that it's set up, the business is way more important than the music. I thought it was important to get myself in a position where I didn't have to focus so much on the business so I could focus more on the creativity.
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