I believe that experimenting is what production is. But it doesn't mean much if you don't have a solid foundation in what you're experimenting with. You can't really deviate from music unless you know music; it's not gonna work.
— El-P
I really don't believe in going too far out of your way to hunt down somebody to do a song.
I'm not that prolific in terms of making my own music.
I remember listening to 'Low End Theory': I had been kicked out of high school. I was in GED school in the LES, and all I could do was listen to 'Low End Theory.' I was in a strange time in my life, and 'Low End Theory' kind of defined that time.
When I'm not feeling something, I have a very hard time doing it.
A lot of the attitude I used to have about being from New York when I was younger just disappeared when I started to the rest of the world.
Darkness does not truly have sway. I think that it's weak.
If there's any credence to the guy who wrote 'Drones Over Blkyn' a year before drones were flying over Brooklyn, then listen to me: we're going to be in fascist police state.
The thing about Steven Seagal is that he clearly wants to be a great person, but he just doesn't know how.
One of the reasons why I thought it was a good decision to put Def Jux on hold is that it's a hell of a lot easier to dismiss something as a movement than to dismiss individuals making good records.
I've never had a huge collection of records; I've never been a beat digga. I never been one of these guys who drives cross-country and knows some one-legged sailor who has a boat parked off some pier with a thousand Russian funk records that he stole from the Red Army in 1972.
I don't necessarily think the way people do, but that's not my problem. My problem is not to reinforce or destroy any ideas anyone might have about me, how I do what I do, what my intentions are, the way that I do it. My only job, as far as I can see, is to do the music that I want to do.
There are two types of people, two types of performers: Performers who know how to keep a show going, literally, when the power is gone and performers who haven't had that much experience and will panic and freak out and don't know what to do.
The last Company Flow reunion show in New York City was pretty insane. Everybody knew all the words to every song; everybody had smiles on their faces. Those shows are what you hope for every time you get on the stage.
Run the Jewels, our role is this: We can provide some music and some swagger in the face of doom and in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
I'm a believer in air bags.
I had a boom box with a dual cassette deck and a mic, so I used to make pause tapes. I think a lot of people started like that because it was all I had. I would just take rap records that I liked and just loop the beat by pressing pause and record and make, like, five minutes of these beats.
I'm really pretty ridiculous about how much I work on my music, and I don't look at it as necessarily a good quality. I look at it as a side effect of my apparent insanity. It is what it is, man.
For me, the idea of releasing a free record is powerful if everybody gets it for free at the same time.
You don't know what it feels like to have someone go to bat for you until you really need it, and they do.
I remember one day sitting in the mirror with a saxophone, just looking at myself, being like, 'I can't do this; this is ridiculous.'
If you live in a crowded area of Brooklyn or Manhattan, having a car is a hindrance. It doesn't even make sense. I basically grew up all my life without a car.
I've fallen on my face. I've made mistakes. I've got plenty of records where I listen back, and I think, 'I wouldn't've done that.'
I tried to get Steven Seagal for my 'Stepfather Factory' video in 2002.
I just love Steven Seagal for his pure - his perspective on what being a hero is: just a purely evil, cruel perspective.
I have a tendency to dip my foot in self-destructive behavior.
I don't hate Jay-Z. I think he's dope.
I don't believe in collaboration necessarily for collaboration's sake, but I will do it, and sometimes it's great.
I really want to produce a record for Mary J. Blige.
I work on a musician's week, so Monday is Friday. By the time Thursday rolls around, you stay in, and you work, and you don't go out because it's horrible.
There's a lot of pretense out there. It can be exhausting. When people see something genuine, even if it's something as simple as two people actually being friends, actually enjoying what they're doing, or actually standing up for each other, that translates in a big way.
We all want recognition and validation to an extent for our art, but greatness as a trade for decency is a risky proposition. In my life, I try to leave the people I encounter with the feeling that they have been respected and treated with warmth and appreciation.
I probably started trying to make beats at around 12.
I really only put stuff out when I have something to say and I feel like I've got a direction and I've got an idea - and that can even take two, two-and-a-half years to flesh out.
I guess there are a lot of writers out there who get really inspired when they're depressed. I can't write about being depressed until I'm happy. That's all there is to it. I need space.
I had a year, where... I was secretly, 100 percent, dead broke.
I was obsessed with Philip K. Dick.
I used to think that growing up in New York made me ready for everything - for everything. Before I really got a chance to travel, I thought that I was better prepared for the world because I was from New York.
The bravest artists I've ever known have always been graf artists. Risking your life and your freedom is no joke.
My love of Seagal is ridiculous. Like, I love this man. I love how ridiculous he is. I mean, he made an album called 'Songs From The Crystal Cave.'
A lot of people thought 'Funcrusher' was super dark and hopeless, and I don't think it was hopeless in any way.
I would have to be traditional and say that my favorite era of hip-hop was between '85-'89. That was the era that got me to love hip-hop.
Some of the music I made for 'Fantastic Damage' I thought I was making for the Company Flow album, but the majority of it was post-Company Flow.
I just don't believe in making music about making music anymore.
My videogame mind died after they stopped making wonderful escape worlds - every game just turned into me training to be in the army. But I used to love the Oddworld and 'Abe's Exoddus' and 'Abe's Oddysee' for Playstation.
I like Das Racist, and so should you.
It's pretty cool being 40 and having your blow-up moment.
The thing I love about music is, if you do it long enough, you get better and better at translating what's in your head to a medium. That's why I keep doing it.
