will.i.am Quotes

I hate the industry even more now, no bands get nurtured anymore. Labels only spend money promoting acts they know will be Top Ten. I find it offensive spending $2 million on a video.

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

A lot of big labels will just sign bands like a write off.

You know, I didn't have enough money to quit my day job... the myth of the major label deal. Nowadays, you have a tour bus and a stylist and all this stuff. But back then, no way.

This is a very screwed-up business. Record labels don't sign a lot of bands these days. We just want to find a home and stay there and make records and do our thing and not have to look over our shoulder.

Artist development is something that I've been passionate about from my days at Uptown and Motown Records.

There are certainly things labels can still provide that indie artists can't. They can pave the way to radio and pay big bucks for promotion.

We've managed to have a long career that is still quite vibrant, yet we've never had to kow-tow to record companies who said we weren't commercial enough.

You don't want the biggest record deal as far as money goes, you just want to make sure that the people at the label really support your band and the music and stuff.

There are people who are genetically made to start record labels, and I'm not one of those people. People just have it in their blood and are good at it. Corey Rusk from Touch and Go and Ian MacKaye. These are people who have made their own labels.

It's such a stupid thing to sign a band and then demand a hit right away to instantly recoup the money. The point is, you have to do it by building your own following, and that is not necessarily done by writing instant hits.

I think the record industry has gotten to be more about labels wondering what the new single is rather than labels nurturing artists. It's gotten away from making a full album of music that someone would want to listen to all the way through.

If it wasn't for the TLC story, many artists would not have smartened up, and you wouldn't have the Lil Waynes and people with their own labels.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don't think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

Music companies and buyers are not too encouraging towards independent musicians. Everyone wants to play safe and go with established names, but unless one breaks this routine, no new talent will come and survive.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

You have record companies that sign acts that they think are great, and then they never do anything. Acts that they don't think are really going to do much end up having a career. I don't think anyone really knows what it is that drives somebody to get on their computer and want to download a song.

Major labels blow all their money massively and blame it on the band.

People in the music business say don't make too many records because they'll compete against one another.

A lot of very popular mainstream artists are products of record companies and marketing companies, and any time anyone can stand outside of that, that's interesting.

If you want a studio to back you, you want to be doing something that's been done to death!

You rarely get money out of labels, except for when they open up a budget for a project. Other than that, it's a do-or-die type thing.

I like Rick Ross as a person. I like Jay-Z and Kanye West as people. But I hate the companies that they record for.

I now believe that major labels can only work with people who care more about fame and money than the quality of the art they produce.

I think it's very important for hip-hop, when an artist reaches a certain level, to ascend to executive work.