Vonda Shepard Quotes

As any small business owner knows, starting a business is not glamorous work.

My passion is music, you know, and music influences culture, influences lifestyle, which leads me to 'Roc-A-Wear'. I was forced to be an entrepreneur, so that led me to be CEO of 'Roc-A-Fella' records, which lead to Def Jam.

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to start a record label.

Jimmy Iovine, he pretty much started off as an engineer and a producer, and then he started up a label. Then he built his label to have big artists like Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. Then he started up a headphone company and made it a billion dollar business. He's a genius to me.

I want to invest and have my own record label and artists. I want to have a business where my kids, kids, kids will still have something going on long after I'm gone.

I certainly don't want to be a record label guy.

I had always thought of starting my own record company. I haven't regretted the decision - yet!

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

As the years passed, and I was nine, 10, 11 years old, it became obvious I was going to start up a business of some sort.

Entrepreneurship is really hard and painful - I'm not sure I'd recommend it for anyone who can't handle the extreme stress.

I started my own record label.

I took the process of doing as much myself as I could like a duck to water. I set up my own label and publishing, etc, and it was a fun learning curve two decades ago.

If you are handed something, it's a blessing and a curse. Look at hip hop artists, they produced everything themselves. Even people like Robert De Niro are getting into production. Again, it's art vs. marketing. Not everyone can take the risk. You have to break a few eggs to make a good omelet.

We had a nightmare on our first album, and went through two producers. I decided, on the second album, to take the money that we were supposed to use for pre-production, and we went into a studio and cut the album with no producer. We finished the whole thing without telling the record company.

I just wanted to have my own dynasty. I wanted my own Cash Money or Roc-A-Fella. Outside of that, I also wanted my own media company.

I had always wanted to start a company, ever since I was very young.

I'm going to build an empire. I'm always writing for someone else. I want to be someone who has her fingerprints all over the pop charts.

I thought, 'If I can create a business to promote martial arts, that'd sure be a lot of fun.'

The main thing is we never dissolved our Gang Starr contract. We are still signed to each other. We never disbanded the group. If Guru really wanted to super-dead it he would have said, 'Yo, I want out.' And I still would have tried to convince him to stay. We are still Gang Starr.

I had this dream of starting a pizza business since college. I came up with the name, menu, and recipes back then.

People thought we were crazy for starting a record company. They really thought I was shooting myself in the foot.

You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.

I just think that any person who wants music to be their career shouldn't focus on a record label. I have seen friends who sign to a label too early in their career, and they lost control over their music, and their releases were delayed or never put out.

Success came to me in my late 20s. I started touring when I was a teenager, so I had already seen the good, the bad, and the ugly side of the music business. Plus, setting up my own record company taught me a lot.

Eventually, I want to have my own clothing line.