Quotes by Flying Lotus - Page 2

I don't like to brag about it, but there are people I've worked with at the start of their career, and they've all become very, very successful.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Brag
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I'm not much of a coffee person, but when I wake up and the sun is shining through the window, I'll get a lil' bit of green tea and get to work.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Coffee
Window
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Here's the thing: if I want to do something, I just have to do it - for real! I'm not gonna pussy out in the moment. I don't want no holding back!
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Moments
Real
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I can't let darkness be what guides my decisions. I can't let that be what guides how I treat people. I can't let that be what drives my art, either.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Guides
Decisions
Drives
Treat
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I just understand that I'm supposed to be one of those people that disrupts the flavor a little bit instead of being part of the same sound as everyone else.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Flavor
Everyone Else
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I don't want to do one of those records where it's like a compilation of a bunch of all sorts of rappers on my beats. I don't find those to be focused albums.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Beats
Compilation
Rappers
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Whenever it gets a little cold in L.A., it gives me an excuse to light my fireplace. You could stare at that joint for, like, a cool two hours. It's entrancing.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Cold
Excuse
Hours
Light
Fireplace
Gets
Gives
Joint
Stare
Whenever
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If I see a cop, it's not like, 'Oh, there's a cop who's gonna keep me safe.' It's more, 'There's a cop who might be having a bad day, so don't make eye contact.'
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Bad Day
Contact
Cop
Eye Contact
Me Keep Day
Me Day Keep
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I believe there's more than this - that maybe, when we die, our brains conjure up some kind of shutdown experience, and that's what people try to sum up as the afterlife.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Afterlife
Experience Believe People
Brains
Experience Believe I Believe
Conjure
Sum
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I'm the kind of person who needs to be challenged all the time. I need my brain to go, or else I just end up playing video games all day, you know? That's cool too, I guess, at times.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
All Day
Challenged
Video Games
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I love my Fender Rhodes. It's been a part of my family since that keyboard came out, and I've had it reworked so that it's in the best condition it's actually ever been in. That is my baby.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Love Best Family
Condition
Fender
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A strong concept is the most important thing in creating a record. When you can listen to it and see a whole movie in your head, that's what separates an instrumental album from a beat tape.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Tape
Instrumental
Separates
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Reading music has opened up me up so much. I've been experimenting for so long and trying to make sense of things just from my ears. It takes forever. Now I can get where I want much quicker.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Ears
Music Me Long
Music Long Me
Experimenting
Opened
Quicker
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I remember Usher came up to me at Coachella once, and it's like, 'Are you sure you're talking to the right person? How do you even know what I look like? You're not supposed to know who I am.'
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Right Person
Look I Am Me
Usher
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I actually really liked the music to the 'Friday the 13th' Nintendo game. I still listen to it all the time. I sampled it in a couple records, too. It's hypnotic and dark but also really pretty.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Friday
Hypnotic
Nintendo
Time Music Game
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I do think your environment really plays into how you create. I lived in San Francisco for a bit, and I felt like I lived in the Matrix - so my music had that paranoid-of-the-outside sound to it.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
San Francisco
Francisco
Matrix
San
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I was 10 years old when the Northridge quake happened, and I lived right in the area, so it was a traumatic thing for me. I'd never had anything like that happen before. It's always stuck with me.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Me Always Never
Traumatic
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I had the whole 'Ghostbusters' toy set with the firehouse and the car and everything. Sometimes I'd use my grandpa's camera and make little stop-motion cartoons with those toys - I was definitely a weird kid.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Grandpa
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When I made '1983,' there were a bunch of tracks that were in the early drafts that didn't make it because they just sounded like tracks for rappers, and that's not really the sound I look for when I produce my own albums.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Albums
Drafts
Rappers
Tracks
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Part of what I like to do with Brainfeeder is to get the younger kids hearing jazz, because they don't know where to go to really hear it. Brainfeeder gives me a platform to put out people like Kamasi Washington or Austin Peralta.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Austin
Where Me People
Me People Jazz
Platform
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Before saying, 'This track is so dope; it's gonna go on the album,' I like to take some time away from it and see how I feel about it in a few months. If it's gonna get released, I gotta love it - it's gonna have my name on it forever.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Dope
Love Time Feel
Released
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The city is always influential in the work, though I've had that temptation to leave, but only recently. It's difficult because whenever I start working someplace else, I'm like, "Man, this would have been better if I had my subwoofer."
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Men
Influential
Temptation
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I wish more artists would do that sort of thing - just focus on one sound on a record instead of "Here's my club banger, here's my metro booming track, and then here's my Americana song." I like albums to feel like a world. That's just me.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Artist
Song
Track
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It's tough when you're an artist because you get to go around the world and make a lot of friends, but guess what? One day, all these people that you love are going to die, from DJ Mehdi to DJ Dusk to J Dilla to Austin Peralta to DJ Rashad.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Artist
Austin
Dusk
One Day
Tough
Love World Day
Guess
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When it comes to art in general now, we've become so aware of our influence. We know when people are listening, when people are watching. It's not healthy. We start creating with that in the background of our mind. I think it's ruined my mind.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Ruined
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I found so many reasons to call it 'You're Dead!' - not just because I wanted to make this album about the journey through death. I was watching the music scene that I came up with kind of go stale and watching the lights go out on a lot of my friends.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Stale
Lights
Music Scene
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The Soft Machine's 'Volume Two' inspired me heavily. That record just feels like it was all done in the same breath. It's genius, and it's silly at times. But I love the fact that every time I listen to it, I listen from the beginning and want to play it out.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Silly
Volume
Love Time Me
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It's the old-school jazz mentality that I connect with the most. I dig the idea of the seeker, the guy who's always trying to figure out why he is doing music and trying to understand and make sense of his instrument in a world which deals with rigid instruction.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Deals
Instruction
Mentality
Music Always World
Music World Jazz
Dig
Rigid
Seeker
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I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, which doesn't feel like L.A. It's a bit different. It's still L.A. County, but it's not the same, it's not the kind of place where they embrace you for being a weirdo. You were just left alone with your Nintendo, and that was my life.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
County
Nintendo
Weirdo
Life Alone My Life
Life Alone Your
Fernando
San
Valley
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I don't want to do one of those records where it's like a compilation of a bunch of all sorts of rappers on my beats. I don't find those to be focused albums. I'd like to sit and work a whole record with a certain person, to come up with a concept and see it through that way.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Rapper
Want
Way
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More than ever, I had to analyze my mental state over the past couple of years because of all the things that happened since the last album came out. Just being surrounded by lots of noise - good and bad - and still being able to try to hold onto some kind of identity for myself.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Couple
Past
Trying
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I feel like part of my journey as a filmmaker is to tell different stories, whether they are just a black perspective on things that aren't necessarily hood movies, or Tyler Perry movies or Ava DuVernay movies. Love all those people, but that whole thing has been sowed up already.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Hood
My Journey
Tyler
Perry
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I was first inspired to make music by my cousin Oran. He was making music on an old Mac II by himself in his little lab, and I just started taking up after him. He was the first person to put a machine in front of me to work on. He was like my big brother, someone who I looked up to.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Cousin
Work Music Me
Big Brother
Lab
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The first beat that I ever made that I thought was actually worth a damn was called 'Toilet Paper Nostrils,' and I made it when I had a cold. I had the worst cold ever. And I had toilet-paper nostrils making music, but it was really reflective of how I felt. It was a really sad trumpet sound.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Music
Sad
Cold
Damn
Felt
Made
Paper
Sound
Toilet Paper
Worst
Had
Actually
Beat
First
Ever
Trumpet
Toilet
Making
Reflective
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Thundercat, specifically, is insane. I'm always surprised at the things he comes up with when we're jamming out together. I gotta try to keep up with him and his ideas, be able to respond without speaking, and come through with some more music. He challenges me to keep it musical and not so computer.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Computer
Insane
Musical
Music Together Always
Respond
Gotta
Jamming
Speaking
Surprised
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Before I started Brainfeeder, there were rumblings in our own circle about creating a label for us all. Then I started to see all these other ones from Europe try to capitalise on the scene. It didn't make sense to me that there were all these people who were trying to build on something that was in our backyard.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Me People See
Backyard
Me People Circle
Circle
Label
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I decided to play the saxophone because it was the most obvious instrument in my family. There were a lot of saxophone players in my family, and there were extra saxophones, so that was an easy one to pick up. It was fun - it was okay - it just wasn't me. It didn't feel like my instrument, so I never followed through.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Obvious
Saxophone
Family Me Fun
Extra
Followed
Instrument
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I definitely learned to communicate with other musicians better. I used to feel so intimidated by guys who can read notes, like, 'Oh my God, they're gonna think I'm not even gonna be able to sit at the table.' But I've come to see that a lot of these musicians don't know how to read music either, and that made me feel good.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Communicate
Feel Good
Intimidated
Notes
God Good Music
Oh My God
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I used to be really into traditional meditation, but I found that creating new music is the best meditation. When I'm able to get into that space, nothing else matters, and I'm just a vessel for whatever the message is; I feel like I'm not in control. It's like this organic communication, and I feel like that is the quiet, in a way.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Communication
Meditation
Quiet
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It's okay to not be working all the time and to be gentle on yourself when you're not. When it feels like you're losing that inspiration - or you're in a rut, not making stuff, and your head gets all weird - be gentle on yourself. Just ease into things naturally. But you still have to ease into it: you still have to sit in the chair.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Ease
Feels
Gentle
Inspiration
Losing
Okay
Stuff
Yourself
Things
Weird
Time Yourself Your
Naturally
Chair
Working
Still
Time Weird Yourself
Gets
Head
Making
Rut
Sit
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Artists are all giving so much of ourselves to the work and the people and the press and the media and Twitter and all that now. For me, being able to create from a genuine place is really difficult lately because there's so much going on all the time, but when all that stuff gets quiet, you can explore your ideas without any ego or mental chatter.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Artist
Giving
People
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I try to convey this feeling of being innocent in a mystical state, being in a place that's new, seeing things with brand new eyes, for better or worse. I just imagine this little kid floating on a beautiful king-size bed over the city at night, seeing all sorts of crazy stuff happening in the world. To me, half the fun is all the stories other people have.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Beautiful
Crazy
Fun
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I believe there's more than this - that maybe when we die our brains conjure up some kind of shutdown experience, and that's what people try to sum up as the afterlife. But yeah, I think something else is going to happen and it's going to be crazy and confusing and weird, and we probably won't know what it's all about. It'll just be another place where we're trying to understand why we exist at all.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Afterlife
Believe
Crazy
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I'm not going to be like, "I gotta get this idea out of my head." It's like, "OK, here's a clean slate, and I've got all these paints, and all these brushes, and this is what I'm going to do with it." It reveals itself, and you take a step back and say, "What's happening here? Where are we going? What does this mean? Do I need to break it open? Does it need to just be what it is? Should it end now?"
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Break
Mean
Paint
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I definitely learned to communicate with other musicians better. I used to feel so intimidated by guys who can read notes, like, "Oh my god, they're gonna think I'm not even gonna be able to sit at the table." But I've come to see that a lot of these musicians don't know how to read music either, and that made me feel good. I could just come up with ideas or show somebody things and get the ideas across.
Flying Lotus / Music Producer
Feel Good
Guy
Thinking
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Flying Lotus Quotes - Page 2

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