Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't want my music to stay New York, I want it to be everywhere.
I don't just strictly sample. I build. I'm a musician: I play piano and drums, I read notes, I write music.
People are going to be seeing me a lot everywhere: TVs, music, movies, festivals. You name it, I'm gonna be there.
I'm not stuck strictly doing hip-hop. Songs from the dance/electronic scene are my favorite to make and remix, and I like that world.
I want to produce with people that are going to be on the charts and win Grammys because having regular old street songs is cool, but I did all that already.
Nowadays, all the people who are major are just DJs. The lighting and all that makes the show - without all of that stuff, it's just a person behind a laptop. With me, though, it's an actual show.
I'm a drummer. I've been playing since I was three. I was in college bands when I was in elementary school: you'd see all these older kids and then this little kid behind the drums creating this big sound.
I'm always blowing the speakers out in studios, like, there's smoke coming out of them. I found out that I'm not built for studio monitors. I record and mix down everything in the headphones and then I bring it to the speakers.
What's crazy to me is that people now assume I'm behind [hip-hop] tracks that other people are putting out. They're just sitting on the edge of their chair waiting for me to put out [rap beats]. But it's not going to happen. I've graduated from that.
I am an alien. I start a lot of relationships with artists because of what I'm capable of doing with the machine and with beats. Anyone can just listen to a beat, that's boring. But when you actually perform in front of them, it's like: wow. It's undeniable talent. That's my advantage.
I saw someone label me as a dubstep producer but I'm definitely not a dubstep producer. There's nothing wrong with that, though, because that's major. But it's like a school bus driver being labeled as a NASCAR driver. I would love to be a NASCAR driver, but I drive buses for a living.
There are a lot of people who have used the same samples I've used, but there's no way they flipped it the way I did. So, when I put my version out, people completely forgot that this [other] person did it. Everyone can have the same product, but it's more about the way you present it and put it together.
I don't practice. It's a gift. It's talent. Obviously, I do it all the time so it's like I'm practicing, but that's just what I do. Sometimes I'll be in the studio flipping through beats and I'll do something quick and people will be like, "What the?!" It's natural! I don't need to be nice like that, I just do it.