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If you think about 2Pac, Biggie, and Nas, all of those guys were teenagers or in their early 20s when they got started. Everybody acts like young people have to be silly and lack perspective. Those guys had incredible perspective, and everything that they said was before 25 years old.
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I don't care whether something makes one dollar or a trillion because guess what? I don't know many happy rich people. And I know a lot of rich people.
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As much as you act like everything is programmed or calculated or researched or numbers, spins, radio, and clubs, it's still human beings out here you can reach with music.
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I've never been a mega-star. I'm more of a tastemaker of hip-hop. I try to be more of an ambassador for the era of hip-hop that I came in.
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Pillow talk is the strongest conversation on the planet.
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I hate filming in the studio.
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Common and I have a long history of making great music together.
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If you want to make money, that's great, but if you make great music, you're going to make money anyway. Keep your eyes on making a great product. You don't even have to promote it.
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There's the way modern music is produced, which is, 'Here's a piece of music, and I'm the producer, so pay me and make sure my credit is right and get me my splits.' But I'm trying to go backward. Now, it's more like 'What's the texture? What's the over-arching story?' There are more things to pay attention to than 'Is this the right snare?'
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I was a rapper. The reason I stopped rapping was because I realized that people wanted guys like Puff Daddy. That's not what I do. I quit. That was it. I had to sacrifice for my choice. I said, 'Forget it. I'll be a producer.' Nobody was going to make me do anything.
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You make some good music, people are gonna find you.
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I'm not interested in anything besides making some good music, helping some artists, being an executive. I'm pretty happy with that.
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Nas' longevity comes from him having strong lyrical value in his songs, him being more like a poet and improving over time.
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I believe that when you really make the best music you can make from your heart, it will transcend all of those stereotypes, color issues, everything, because music is really made for human beings.
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I take a lot of pride in helping people become great. I think that's an element of being a producer that people don't always take in: They want to be great for themselves, whereas I'd like to be recognized as having helped the most people get over the hump.
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When people get to see me interact with the creative giants, they see the perspective and the respect. A lot of times, people don't have that respect, from a music perspective, with the music people.
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I've got a philosophy I call 'no dancing in the end zone.' You score, get back, and run another play.
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If you look before the '90s, you might not find many - if any - albums with multiple producers. It just didn't exist in the history of music. That would have been like Michael Jackson telling Quincy Jones, 'Look man, I know we did well on 'Off The Wall,' but I'm hot now, and I need to see some other producers for 'Thriller.''
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I just want to work on music and make some new stars. I'm not interested in being a star.
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Ghostface, when it comes to hip-hop, was one of my favorite rappers and definitely one of my favorites in the Wu-Tang. He's also a really cool dude.
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There's so many things that Kanye does that I agree with and disagree with at times. I just say, 'You're in a different place, and what you're doing is experimental. Nobody's been there in hip-hop.'
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I'm not going to put my music up on some little corner of the Internet or give it away for free. What does that do? That's just giving up. I'm not giving up, ever.
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I think that sometimes, as producers, we just service the artists who's really just the main front or person. You know, our roles are really just to help them get where they're supposed to go.
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There's this concept in urban music and lifestyle that money is everything, and I'm just not with it. If it makes money, it doesn't make it good. If it's good, it's good.