DJ Premier Quotes

I'm intrigued on how music is made, that's how I started getting into it. Of course I've been in the booth before, just joking around to see how it is, and I'll make a couple of beats here or there and help my artists out. But other that, I'll stick to listening.

I started out really making music in my dorm room, and it wasn't really producing or anything like that; it was you making something.

My producer, HH, makes sounds, so I'm writing to his beats.

Sometimes I hear a drum groove in my head and I rush down to my studio.

The studio is really fun because I don't make it into the studio unless I've got something I really like. I love working with different musicians in the studio; that's a real joy, working with someone for the first time.

Sometimes I go in and try to write beats, but I just trash 'em, and then the next time I go in, I'll make like six beats - six legit, nice beats. I'm really particular with how it needs to sound.

One of my favourite Donald Byrd tracks is 'Think Twice,' and I didn't want to sample it. I've always enjoyed when other people have sampled it, so I wanted to instead of making a beat with it or something like that, or freak the beat of whatever. I wanted to just recreate it in my own way, like how I heard it.

During the day I'll work on music. I have a sampler and a drum machine out with me and I write new songs while we're on the road.

Future's the guy, like, where, if I send him some beats while he on the road, and there's a pack of beats that he really like, if there's a new vibe or new wave, he's like, 'Man, keep feeding me more. Feed me more of this every day.'

People will go through 50 beats from a producer and pick the best ones, go make a song on that beat. That's cool, but someone coming to me and hearing what I've been working on, picking out pieces of all of that, and then adding some of their own ideas is way more exciting.

If the beat feels like it don't make you move right, I scrap that and go to another track. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour to get one done.

I started making beats in high school.

There's a difference between a beatmaker and a producer.

I don't shop beats. That was never my method coming up. I think it's very strange to have a CD of 30 or 40 beats and then just pick one.

I'm always making tracks. I find that when you make tons of tracks, you stumble upon genius. You can't always turn the drum machine on and right away there's a hot track. Sometimes you luck out. But it can take a lot of time between thinking about the artist, listening to music for inspiration or going to clubs.

People don't understand how long it really takes to find beats. Sometimes they're not all the way there, but it's elements in them I love. Then I get to take them to get chopped up. Ye got to cook over a few of them.

The difference between doing a remix and an original track is that when you do a remix, you obviously already have the original track as a starting point. But with the originals you start from scratch.

I don't sample. I'm not like one of these guys who concoct some beat on my sampler and just turns it in.

I used to record songs, like, play the beat from one phone and have another phone recording me and just rap. Moving from that to a studio was like, 'Damn, I never knew I could sound like this.' It was just magic.

I love doing the music. I love programming beats and kind of working on the music as much, if not more, than the actual rapping.

When I start working on a new album, I kind of stop listening to a lot of outside stuff just so I can kind of focus.

When I use electronic beats and program things, there's something quite brain about that - you're feeling it in your body but it's like a puzzle you wanna solve, and it gets very detailed. I really enjoy that side of music.

I write each song individually and each one calls for individual musicians, You sit around and wonder who can we get to play a Neil Young solo, and then you realize there's a good chance you can get Neil himself.

You don't really know what you're going to get until you're actually in Abbey Road. That's where I did all the music, in The Beatles' place.

I like to be in the zone. I like being in the studio with the artists, with the producers, with the musicians, feeling it, and going there. I feel like I have a lot of content to start writing about.