23 November 2008, American Music Awards, Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles, USA
From the man who said in a 2013 magazine interview " I am Warhol. I am the number one most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh. Walt Disney. Nike. Google ..."
I'd like to thank everybody who accepted me trying to break new boundaries and music.
I wake up in the morning and just think about what stereotypes I'm gonna break.
Um you know we pushed the envelope, with the last album, with ‘Stronger’, with a record they thought wouldn't play on urban radio. And it's our responsibility as musicians to keep pushing each other and keep competing with each other. It's a really great competition. I see artists like Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Chris Martin all in the same room. And we're going to push music to the point where it was like in the 60s in the 70s where you talk about Led Zeppelin and Hendrix and The Beatles - we will be the new Beatles, the new Hendrix.
They say in any other industry, you're supposed to do better than the past, like computers should get smaller, and faster. But whenever you say, 'I want to be Elvis' they say, 'what's wrong with you?'
Well I want to be Elvis.