I really am not interested in making political music per se. I'm making personal records, but at the same time, I'm very much aware of my surroundings. And those surroundings, what's going on in the larger picture, affects my everyday life and affects the way that I think.
— El-P
I was raised by women. The men in my life were either not there or not good when they were there.
Just because I run an indie label doesn't mean I don't think Jay-Z is nice.
When writing songs, especially if they're kinda semi-true to you, a lot of people hide behind whatever their idea of themselves is in the record, and every now and then, you might make a song that exposes something a little too much about you, and there's a part that doesn't want yourself to be exposed.
With me, I'm going to have a label where no one is ever cheated, ever.
I'm not a 'dystopian, futuristic master': I'm a schnook walking the street. It's an insane reality we're living in, and I'm just trying to translate it for myself.
You've got to recognize it when it's time to go.
Personally more so than shock, I think, rap music has to be born of rebellion.
I literally have a massive database of cat sounds.
I've lived in New York City all my life. I love New York City; I've never moved from New York City. Have I ever thought about moving out of New York? Yeah, sure. I need about $10 million to do it right, though.
The thing about hip-hop producers, and the thing about hip-hop musicians, is that we listen to everything. And we're inspired by everything. I'd say even more so than any other genre of music.
I'm of the generation that discovered Aerosmith because of Run-DMC. They just looked crazy to me. They were the dudes in the Run-DMC video. That's who Aerosmith was.
The name of a cat has to come from something that just occurs to you by interacting with the cat.
I think that Gordon Ramsay is maybe one of the most entertaining people ever on television. And I would love to pretend to be Gordon Ramsay and walk into a restaurant uninvited and attempt to make them change their menu. It's just a personal fantasy of mine.
I'm not mad at digital media at all; I just see the importance and beauty of physical media.
My New York, the one I identify with as a kid, has greatly changed. And I'm sure the people who were adults when I was a kid probably felt the same way.
I think any teenager, any single parent household teenager growing up in New York City, will probably go through tumultuous years. I definitely did. It all sort of righted itself once I definitively got on the path of being a musician or, like, following that directly.
Atheists are just as obnoxious if not more obnoxious than zealots.
I reserve the right to think many different things and to change my mind and to even be wrong.
You can always get something cool out of a collaboration - you can always have a moment - but meeting someone that you want to collaborate with continuously, that's a different thing.
You put a piece of music out, and it's not in your hands anymore, and that's cool with me.
I think it's impossible for hip-hop to be a dying art form.
How could you possibly call something science fiction at this point unless it has to do with something that hasn't been done? When I write about 'Drones over Brooklyn,' it's not like I'm making something up. Drones are policing American cities.
There's always stuff to rebel against.
There's something in the German language that makes you feel like you're getting a hug and a backstab at the same time.
I've been listening to this group called the Veils, which I kind of discovered late. I've been really obsessed with this album that they have called 'Nux Vomica,' and I just think it's a brilliantly produced and written rock record.
'The Venture Bros' are my jam.
Anything that gets to the more emotional and dark side of music, I always enjoy.
You don't have to say something directly to affect someone. You can make a piece of music without words that can capture a feeling of tragedy or struggle or anger or triumph. It's the translation of the human experience into another form.
I definitely grew up on Garfield. I just loved his pessimism.
Standing up for what you believe is right, as well as standing up for what you believe is funny, standing up for what you believe is cool. As we found each other and the music that we do, we get to live out all of those things. That's what Run The Jewels is: it's all of those aspects of our personality.
I don't ever really feel guilty about music, quite frankly. When you're younger, you think that anything you don't like, you have to hate. I'm so far beyond that perspective. Although, I will say I resent Bruno Mars for making me like him as much as I do. I wish that he wasn't so likeable.
New York is just an energy. There's a beauty to the way it's laid out: the architecture, the way the planning is. It's huge, but you really do get to experience more than your own existence here. It's kinda hard to isolate yourself from different types of people, different types of ideas or communities.
I grew up on listening to, like, Mantronix and BDP and EPMD and Kool G Rap and Ultramag and Public Enemy and Fat Boys and Run DMC and a lot of those early records, those Rubin-era records. Those were always snare- and stab-heavy records.
The people who talk the most about God are people who are the least like God.
I strongly believe in the art form of the album.
'Meow The Jewels' was a nightmare of a promise I had to fulfill. We made a joke that if the fans gave us $40,000, we would remix our album using nothing but cat sounds.
Def Jam is the reason why I started a label.
I think that people have been claiming hip-hop as being dead since the moment it started.
Labels are curators of taste, and the best ones know how to monetize what an artist is trying to do.
Rap music deserves truth, and it deserves spontaneity.
Being stupid and compassionate are not conflicts. Being mean and being funny and having something to say are not a conflict.
If New York has just become a mall for the world, then what's the difference between being here and somewhere else?
Run The Jewels, me and Mike, and our connection and everything, came out of a period of time where I had personally lost everything.
I just like heavy music in general - from heavy rock and heavy metal and heavy rap and heavy everything. I've always been attracted to it.
Music can feel empowering, or it can give a natural emotional voice to something people can't express. This is why it's beautiful.
I'm a cat guy. I'm absolutely a cat guy. I grew up with cats.
All I ever wanted to do, personally, was bring something new to what I loved: the thing that I loved the most, the music that I loved the most.
If I can't work, I don't know what to do with myself.
I always liked the idea that you can put something in you onto a canvas or a piece of paper and have it exist there and not inside you. It's a way to control things.
