“I stopped playing the drums when I was ten, and I picked up Rubik’s Cubes. I was doing that for a while, and then I got into cinematography.”
― Rich Brian
“Things can go away just like that. You got to be always respectful and nice and positive.”
― Rich Brian
“I’m really not a materialistic person.”
― Rich Brian
“I very rarely shop. The only money I spend is on, like, Uber and food.”
― Rich Brian
“In my neighborhood, there are stray goats everywhere, and, someone owns it. Someone has a farm full of goats. At daytime, they just let them loose, but then at nighttime, they just come back. So, it’s like, in daytime, the whole neighborhood is just filled with goats walking around.”
― Rich Brian
“I just love making people laugh.”
― Rich Brian
“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 pronunciation, and looking at the lyrics on Rap Genius and stuff like that.”
― Rich Brian
“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.”
― Rich Brian
“It doesn’t really bother me if people misunderstand me. It’s cool, but you can’t do anything about it.”
― Rich Brian
“I’ve always felt like I could express myself better in English just because the way the grammar works.”
― Rich Brian
“I feel like, with an album, that’s how you get to know an artist.”
― Rich Brian
“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.”
― Rich Brian
“I started listening to rap music in 2012 or something, because that was when I started becoming friends with American people, and they showed me rappers to listen to. I actually started listening to Macklemore a lot. He’s the first rapper I started listening to.”
― Rich Brian
“I feel like kids naturally love guns, so I was drawn to that.”
― Rich Brian
“I grew up in West Jakarta, in a middle-to-low-class neighbourhood.”
― Rich Brian
“I just say ‘Amen’ a lot. It’s just about being grateful and never taking things for granted.”
― Rich Brian
“There are good things about Indonesia, but there are bad things about it that I hope can be fixed.”
― Rich Brian
“It took me a while to figure out the U.S. sense of humor, a lot of trial and error. I would write down jokes to casually tell my American friend over Skype to see which ones he’d laugh at.”
― 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 motivated me.”
― Rich Brian
“I say funny stuff in my lyrics to make people laugh, but it’s all in the seriousness of the music. I’m just being witty.”
― Rich Brian
“Every time I get the chance, I just talk to myself basically in English just to practice my pronunciation.”
― Rich Brian
“I didn’t want to be one of those people that does something that blows up and keeps doing it for way too long.”
― Rich Brian
“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 became friends with American people through Twitter. I was like, ‘Yo, I need to be in a country where everybody speaks the same language.’”
― Rich Brian
“It’s important for kids to see someone who looks like them carving his own path. I definitely acknowledge that, and I think it’s super great.”
― Rich Brian
“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.”
― Rich Brian
“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 trying to profit off anything. I just like creating stuff.”
― Rich Brian
“I want to write from my own experience.”
― Rich Brian
“Learning how to rap actually improved my English, because it forced me to talk fast, and I used to suck at that.”
― Rich Brian
“My sister sings, and my brother plays the keyboard.”
― Rich Brian
“I actually, honestly don’t look into politics that much.”
― Rich Brian
“My main goal was to be a cinematographer. I was making short films, and the plan was to keep uploading them on Twitter and build a fanbase there. One day, I just started making music for fun. When I made ‘Dat $tick,’ it blew up, and I saw the potential in that.”
― Rich Brian
“My brother was the first to be home-schooled, and one reason they home-schooled me was so he wouldn’t get jealous. Another thing is my mom noticed that I would stress out a lot about school. I would ask my teacher how good my grades were and think about that all the time.”
― Rich Brian
“I have very little thoughts on Lil Xan. I think his music is very unique.”
― Rich Brian
“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.”
― Rich Brian
“I would also love to get into acting. I love being in front of the camera.”
― Rich Brian
“Me and my family used to have a Christian covers band together… like rock Christian music, upbeat, all in Indonesian. The band was called Roasted Peanuts.”
― Rich Brian
“I used to play the drums when I was, like, 5 through 10.”
― Rich Brian
“When I found out my parents wanted to homeschool me, I was so bummed out. I missed all my friends. But now I realise that if I wasn’t homeschooled, I’d be the lamest kid ever – I wouldn’t have been able to speak English, for a start.”
― Rich Brian
“I wouldn’t really call myself a spokesman for anything. All I wanna do is inspire young people everywhere – not just Indonesia.”
― Rich Brian
“My influences are a wide variety: from Dave Chappelle stand-up comedy specials on YouTube, to watching chick-flick comedy movies, to scrolling through stuff people say on the Internet.”
― Rich Brian
“All I have to do is to do my thing. I don’t have to talk about it like, ‘Oh, I’m representing for Asians.’ I’m just… doing it.”
― Rich Brian
“I’m definitely trying to make longer songs, but if it’s short and good, I’m not going to do anything about it.”
― Rich Brian
“My dad is constantly looking up my name on Twitter, every single day. He made a Twitter account just for that.”
― Rich Brian
“I started making raps in 2014, recording stuff from my iPhone and putting them together in Sony Vegas, which is a video editing program.”
― Rich Brian
“I always liked to draw, and when I was a kid, the Internet wasn’t big at all, so I would go to Internet cafes and search Google images for cartoon characters and save it to my USB drive.”
― Rich Brian
“When my family got Internet installed at my house, me and my siblings went crazy and would take turns browsing. I’m homeschooled, too, so I would be on the computer every day. It was so exciting to finally get Internet at my house.”
― Rich Brian
“I started playing the drums at five years old and used to listen to a lot of screamo bands like Asking Alexandria, Dream Theater, and Attack Attack!”
― Rich Brian
“It got to the point where I would wake up at 6 A.M. and go on my phone and tweet something and have it be really good and get lots of retweets… and then I would wake up, because it was actually a dream; I would wake up with my hand holding nothing – an air phone.”
― Rich Brian
“I have this friend who does comedy but also music, and I really enjoyed his stuff, and I wanted to do that.”
― Rich Brian
“I started home-schooling when I was in elementary school because my parents were really busy back then. They didn’t have time to drive me there, and we didn’t have a school bus or whatever.”
― Rich Brian
“Hip hop helped me learn about a whole bunch of American culture.”
― Rich Brian
“I don’t want to be just seen as a character, because that can get exhausting after a while.”
― Rich Brian
“I take my music very serious. I don’t call myself a comedian.”
― Rich Brian
“My dad put me onto Phil Collins and Dream Theater and all that stuff.”
― Rich Brian
“I’m definitely not making fun of hip-hop.”
― Rich Brian
“I like lyrical rappers and turn up rappers.”
― Rich Brian
“For songs to be big, I don’t think there’s a certain formula to it.”
― Rich Brian
“I don’t want to be boxed in or looked at a certain way, as in, ‘Yo, he’s an Asian rapper.’”
― Rich Brian
“It’s pretty hard as an Asian rapper to not be put in a box. I do my best to avoid that.”
― Rich Brian
“When I say ‘homeschooled,’ I was homeschooled for, like, two years, and then we just stopped. It was me and my parents, and they’d give me homework and stuff like that, but then one day, they just stopped.”
― Rich Brian
“I learned how to make videos, I learned how to make music, I learned English from the Internet. It’s such a great platform, too, to release your stuff.”
― Rich Brian
“Academic studies in general is not something that I’m very good at.”
― Rich Brian
“I’m listening to Tame Impala, Mac DeMarco, Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino. I’m just trying to just get as many different inspirations as I can. I love artists that can adapt and have different styles.”
― Rich Brian
“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.”
― Rich Brian
“At one point, I had more friends on the Internet than I did in real life.”
― Rich Brian
“I say funny stuff in my songs sometimes, but it’s still all in the seriousness of the music and the craft.”
― Rich Brian
“In my opinion, an album has a story from start to finish and has a concrete concept.”
― Rich Brian
“Indonesian people don’t get satire; that’s the thing. There’s no thought in our humor.”
― Rich Brian
“I’m really about seeing people and art for what they are. Like, seeing people as humans and seeing art.”
― Rich Brian
“I like what Dumbfoundead and Awkwafina are doing, but I think I’m just trying to do something different.”
― Rich Brian
“I went through a clubbing phase – then, I dunno, dude. The club scene in Jakarta sucks. It’s rich kids and kids who are trying to look rich.”
― Rich Brian
“’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?’”
― Rich Brian
“When you listen deeply to a song, you find all the little sounds they use and subconsciously learn how to produce and mix.”
― Rich Brian
“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.”
― Rich Brian
“Being home-schooled, you really get to explore your hobbies, what you want to do for a living.”
― Rich Brian
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