Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'd really like to do a movie, either as a producer or director. My ultimate fantasy would be to direct a movie and produce the entire soundtrack. I don't really see myself acting.
They wanna hang us, see us dead, or enslave us, keep us trapped in the same place we raised in. Then they wonder why we act so outrageous, run around stressed out and pull out gauges.
I had fun doing it, but acting ain't really my thing. I am more of a production/director type. I would rather be behind the scenes and organizing and putting things together like that.
I wanted to be sure that my donation did two things: went directly into the hands of hurricane victims and that it was an amount that could really impact their lives and make a difference.
I've never considered myself a rapper. I know how to do it. I know how to make my voice project, and I know how to stay on beat and what have you, but I've never considered myself a rapper.
Everything in my life has been about sound and making music, so Beats represents just that - the improvement of sound and the dedication to everything I've been doing from the day I started.
I had between 20 and 40 songs for 'Detox,' and I just couldn't feel it. Usually, I can hear the sequence of an album as I'm going, but I wasn't able to do that. I wasn't feeling it in my gut.
I've gone seventy-nine hours without sleep, creating. When that flow is going, it's almost like a high. You don't want it to stop. You don't want to go to sleep for fear of missing something.
I don't even listen to the records after they come out. It's outlawed in my house. My wife and my kids can't play any of my music around me. Once it comes out, for me, it's just business. Numbers.
There is some sampling on my records and a lot of what I call replays, where I'd have musicians come in the studio and replay the sample from the original record. But mainly, we'd come up with our own music.
I want to set the record straight for everybody who's been waiting to hear my music. The song that's out on the internet is an incomplete song that I'm still working on. When it's ready, you'll be hearing it from me.
People are always coming up to me, thinking I've got some magic wand that can make them a star and I want to tell them that no one can do that. Making hit records is not that easy. But it took me time to realize that myself.
It's a very interesting thing because I can start mixing a song and leave the room and come back and maybe just slide one lever to a certain point, and it just - it's a certain feeling that it gives you when you know it's right.
I just want people to hear the music the way it's suppose to sound, the way we meant for them to hear it. You sit in the studio all this time and make the music, tweak it, try to get it perfect. They should be able to hear it that way.
When we started Aftermath, we had something like 20 artists, and it was driving me crazy. I couldn't sit down and focus on any of it. Plus, it was doubly hard because you ended up crushing these people's dreams when you had to let them go.
I'm a producer at heart. I like being in the control room and directing people. That's what I do. But I've gotten on the mic a few times in my career; people seem to like it, so I'll do it again here and there. But that's really not my thing.
I always loved the way music made me feel. I did sports at school and all, but when I got home, it was just music. Everybody in my neighborhood loved music. I could jump the back fence and be in the park where there were ghetto blasters everywhere.
Before now, I've always taken my mixes out to the car and listened to them in the parking lot. I still do that, but more so now I'm listening to it on the Beat box, and I think people should give it at least a listen and check it out and see what it is.
It's always been difficult to make a good record. To be perfectly honest with you, it's really about the person that's pushing the buttons. No matter what type of equipment you have, you still have to have a certain talent to be able to make a good record.
I've looked at pictures that my mom has of me, from when I was four years old at the turntable. I'm there, reaching up to play the records. I feel like I was bred to do what I do. I've been into music, and listening to music and critiquing it, my whole life.
I sequence during the entire recording process. The sequencing changes as I'm recording and as I'm listening. From when I'm, like, four songs in, I start trying to figure out which song should come after which. Which is important, and it changes as the album goes.
Somebody approached me about working with Michael Jackson, and I did say no because I like working with new artists or people that I've worked with in the past. I can develop them from the ground up. There's no set standard that I have to live up to or anything like that.
It's always weird when people approach me to make an investment. I tell them, 'I don't need any more money. I'm good.' Then I wait for their expression. That part is entertaining, because people look at you like you're crazy when you say you don't need any more money. Who says that?
One of the first people that believed in me, the first person to invest in my talent, me and this guy used to argue all the time in the studio, but at the end of the day, we both realized that we were after the same goal, and that was to make great music. And I'm talking about Eazy-E.
I can remember when I was just, like, about four years old in Compton, and my mother would have me stack 45s, stack about ten of them, and when one would finish, the next record would drop. It was like I was DJ'ing for the house, picking out certain songs and so this song would go after that song.
Wreckin' Cru was a DJ crew. They used to call it that because it was the guys that came in after the party was over and broke down the equipment. We eventually made a record, and we had the costumes on and what have you. Back then, everybody had their little getups, you know, like SoulSonic Force, UTFO.
When I think of the future, I think a lot of Quincy Jones and how he is an inspiration. Look at the quality of his work over so many years. He didn't even make his best record, 'Thriller,' until he was 50. That gives me something to look forward to. Nothing pulls you back into the studio more than the belief that your best record is still ahead.
