Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm a film composer, but I'm a hip-hop guy.
I love sampling, and RZA loves sampling, too.
I'm a hip hop dude who loves scoring for film.
I tell people, 'I don't make music, I make worlds.'
I want listeners to feel as though they went through an experience.
To me, the Ennio Morricone kind of sound is a derivative of soul music.
'Luke Cage' is a gift. There's so many different ways you can look at it.
When Curtis Mayfield made 'Super Fly,' he used the lyric to make a statement.
Generally, as a composer, it's perceived as an employer-employee relationship.
I grew up, and I'm getting the chance to make music with the people I idolized.
I have a J.D., but I'm not a practicing attorney as far as entertainment law goes.
It's important to the world to see superheroes that are spread across our demographic.
Change the sound. Make people rethink what they're doing. That's what I really wanna do.
When I did 'Venice Dawn,' there were times where people would cry after listening to it.
I always feel like young people are more emotionally in tune with new and timeless music.
What really, really inspires me is that you don't see many black superheroes on television.
My studio is fully analog. There's nothing modern. There's not even a computer in my studio.
It's important for a young black kid to see a Mexican hero, just to know that we're all equal.
It's the ownership of what's off that's the beauty in art. Its not about being exactly perfect.
A lot of Ennio Morricone's music is just - it's very soulful, very cinematic, and very psychedelic.
I was really raised on hip-hop, and hip-hop introduced me basically to all the music I listen to now.
I've always been a big fan of Kendrick's, but it's different when you hear him on your own production.
My music sounds different because the techniques are archaic, seeing as most people only record digitally.
To me, when something is classic, whether it came out today or thirty years ago, it falls all in the same pot.
I started buying ill, obscure records, and then I saw Portishead and Air live, and my mouth was on the ground.
When you're recording live, really good vintage instruments onto two-inch tape, it's the best fidelity you can get.
I always compare myself to what I did last, so I've got to try and beat what I did last. I'm always upping my own bar.
To me, recording with live instruments and tape takes things back to an older sound that I like but that's still fresh.
When you get above the line, you're above the line. So my thing is I just want to make music where I am always above that line.
As me being somebody that makes arguably nostalgic music, I cannot stand when somebody tries to make old music just to sound old.
When you're composing for somebody, that means you have a boss. You have to do what it takes to, at the end of the day, appease them.
When you get older, you try to get what you wanted as a kid. Maybe you wanted an arcade in your house or Q-Tip rapping on your beats.
I like golden-era hip-hop because they were recording on a 2-inch tape. There was dirty, raw sampling. It's nasty. It has a vibe to it.
Luke Cage is seen in 'Jessica Jones,' but he doesn't really come into his own until the 'Luke Cage' series. That's when you really see who he is.
The easy answer is to say that it's a part for black people to see black heroes, but to me it's important to young Mexican kids to see a black hero.
Blaxploitation films were black films targeting black people. They were films made to appeal to a culture in a way that was supposed to be unfiltered.
I try to make classics. I don't try to make things that aren't good. It's always a pleasure to see that people care about the kind of music I'm making.
We love high-end art, but when you're looking at high-end art in music, a lot of the time, it's appreciated academically, but you can't feel it as much.
I don't like to focus on just hip-hop because with hip-hop, I can only do so much; with a vocalist, I can only do so much, but the limitations are varying.
I love the song 'Picasso Baby,' and I think the performance art piece was brilliant. I love that fact that Jay Z is continuing to raise the bar on hip hop.
The ramifications that you set for yourself can inspire you to do things that you would have never thought of because, once you're trapped, your job is to persevere.
When people score films, the job is to be visual. When people make music, it's about evoking feeling. It's great when you get both feelings and being out of their head.
I'm the black dude that loves old black culture. I also love old white culture. I just love history, but I'm the guy that wants to bring things back and push them forward.
I don't have any computers in my studio, it's all analog tape. All analog tape, all old equipment, I mean my mics are like from the 60's and early 70's, everything in there is old.
Having Ghost and Raekwon together on multiple tracks is almost like cheating because they fit so well together. Their chemistry is undeniable, and they clearly make each other better.
I'd never record digitally. It's not because its' a horrible way to record, it's just not the best way to record my music, because my music is rawer, darker and a little more nostalgic.
As a freelance artist, you have to please somebody instead of just making music. But when the employer trusts and leans on you to determine what is right for a scene or feeling, that's ideal.
I think that being a film composer, someone that gets it and actually applies the music, it allows you to open up a spectrum of feeling. You're now allowed to approach the music from an audio visual perspective.
Cee Lo - to me, his voice is classic; I've personally said to him before, 'For me, your voice is as special as a Michael Jackson vocal,' because of what he can do, his range. I said that to him, and I mean that.
'Luke Cage' came out in 1972 at the height of the blaxploitation era. It was a literary response to this notion of blaxploitation movies. It was the first time in American culture that Hollywood was embracing black movies.