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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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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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The effect that 'Illmatic' had on us at that moment was serious.
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'Take It EZ' was actually the first video I ever produced for.
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I come from an era where you just build something. Me and Common built what we built from Chicago from scratch.
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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.
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I tried to embrace the concept of the sampler as an instrument, looking at how to take it artistically to another place where it can be appreciated, more than just taking someone's song and doing a 4-bar loop.
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I have a Chicago personality, which means that just because I'm friends with one person, I don't assume I'm friends with his friends.
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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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Hit records create slang, and if you create slang, you get into a broader conversation level.
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There's not too many one-producer rap albums. There are lot of one-producer rock albums... and country albums.
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I'm not here to put my music out on the Internet with no support and then say I got creative freedom. I've got creative freedom wherever I go: I don't create anything that I don't want to create. That's freedom. Since when does a company force you to make something that you don't want to make? If they do that, you leave.
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When I do music, I have a hard time experiencing it like everyone else, because there's so much thought that goes into it. You can sometimes fool yourself into thinking it's better than what it is, which stops me from being creative on the next thing I do.
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Sometimes I think albums are so ambitious, they don't stand as bodies of work because you try to achieve so much, and sometimes we need to do less. Say less.
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Trophies or no trophies, we are all just striving to do some really good art and help people's lives with it.
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I've won; I've lost. I'm at the point where I do what I believe in and, win or lose, believe in what I do.
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Don't ever judge anybody. You don't know who anybody is, period... You gotta humble yourself. Just because you are where you are, it doesn't mean you aren't talking to someone great.
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For me, the '80s was great because you had Boy George, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper. No one put boxes saying this is urban, this is popular, this is underground. It was just good or bad.
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I really like G-Herbo.
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'I Used To Love H.E.R.,' from a production standpoint, was a brainchild of the style I developed on 'Soul By The Pound.'
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My entire approach is built on the idea that things can be commercial and artistic.
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After 'Resurrection,' I was getting calls for people to do work with me, and I was turning it down.
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Most of the greatest albums in the history of music are one producer. It's just a fact. Or one collective.
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When you do your art, and you may think people don't recognize it or appreciate it, you actually go and try to get better.