Madlib Quotes

I'm a fan of Bjork, a fan of Premier, you know, those are the first two names that come to my mind. You know, I've learned a lot from every person I've collaborated with, from Madlib to Jean Grae and Hi-Tek, to Mos to DJ Quik, to even somebody like Jermaine Dupri. I've taken something important away from every experience.

As far as k. d. lang is concerned, she grew up devouring my music. She sent me a song when she was 8 years old, and she says I never wrote back.

With L.A. it's like, yeah, there's Death Row and whatever. But I always wanted to know what those artists were sampling. It's how I fell in love with music.

The thing about hip-hop is, like, that the instruments were taken out of schools. But - you might have taken the instruments out of schools, but we'll take the records and sing over them!

To be able to work with Bun B and be able to have a conversation, and the insights the OG has, and really be able to get just advice from him, is amazing.

I'm a hip-hop head, but hip-hop actually introduced me to other genres of music because I started to wonder where a lot of these samples came from. So I fell in love with Bobby Womack or Willie Hutch because I wanted to know where those samples came from.

Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.

I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it's not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That's how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be a musician.

But working with Dre, I grew up with his music, so I'm still like more a fan.

When you're talking about your own music every day, listening to bands, going to festivals, you can kind of lose sight of your initial connection with music. Instrumental music - especially jazz - helps me refocus.

I don't like to go trampling on other people's sounds. That's really about it - I don't gravitate towards it, I try to move away from it.

I am a big Beatles fan. And, you know, unbeknownst to anyone, I used to be one. But I have no problems of putting titles and lines from other songs in my songs, because they're great lines and great titles.

I think everyone should feel like they can make music, they can create music.

Now everybody's sampling.

Dr. Dre, my oldest brother, he paved the way for me and Snoop to get a chance to get into the studio. I asked him to show me how to work the MPC-60... I was about maybe 17, 18, right around there.

Hip-hop educated me about other forms of music, because it sampled from all different styles.

In '96, I was in a very specific place with my own music - I was only listening to beats. You would come to my house, and I would just play beats all day.

The kids that are making the ghetto stuff I can't even reach are the ones that are inspiring me to play music for the other kids in the city they don't even know about. If I don't get those kids making music, there won't be an original kid DJing like me in five to 10 years.

Here's the thing... when people start making music, they start borrowing styles from other people, because that's what you do. You start by recreating hip-hop beats you've heard from other people, or you start mimicking other people, or you're just listening to stuff.

People can look to me as a teacher, but I consider myself a student of hip-hop.

Three 6 Mafia have been around for a long time; we've made a lot of music. Anybody's music can influence anybody. I've heard people say that our music has influenced such and such, and it could be true, and it could not.

I feel it's my job to continue being a student of music if I want to continue being an artist and a producer of other artists. You have to keep filling your mind with other music. You have to be ahead of the curve.

I'd love to do a live album, like a little bit old school but still progressive, influenced maybe by more electronic music. I like everything, but I don't know anything about music. So it comes in to a lot of different ingredients. I love hip hop.

I took up violin because my best mate had taken it up, so I did likewise.

I don't think I ever modeled myself after a singer. I've more or less copied the styles of horn-tooters right from the start.