Zaytoven Quotes

I'd be making beats pretty much every day after school and it just grew and grew. I wasn't precious about my music. I just loved creating and putting stuff out there.

It's whatever - people like me and Dre are music people, so we're beyond just hip-hop. We're purists. Not everybody who makes beats is a purist.

As long as I'm around the cats in the hip hop scene, they'll throw me a track and I'll write a rap over it.

Seeing what kinds of songs work in other cities and other parts of the world was pretty eye-opening. I know it changed how I approached the second record big-time.

We had a simple 8-track studio set up in the record store where I worked. And just staying after work and experimenting, realizing what was possible with recording - that's why my project was called The Microphones at first. Because it wasn't even songs really. It was just sound.

I like releasing singles because I can get them out there quickly and it's based on the changes, the sounds that are going on all around the world that I'm hearing and just a whole different bunch of influences which is sometimes hard to get across on an album because it can take a few months or a year to come along.

My approach to making music has always been making ideas and developing them. Sometimes I develop them all the way by myself. The other part of development is I will work with my friends who are just some of the best producers in the world, give them an idea.

The thing about hip-hop producers, and the thing about hip-hop musicians, is that we listen to everything. And we're inspired by everything. I'd say even more so than any other genre of music.

Yes, I want to work with Rick Rubin. Yes, I want to work with Trent Reznor. Yes, I want to work with Madlib. Yes, I want to get with all these wonderful people. Collie Buddz, Marsha Ambrosius. I just want to go, man. I'm gonna keep on making music.

Coldplay are just four friends trying to make great music.

For instance, I'm always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

I try to listen to over a hundred different songs a day. I listen to every single thing. If you're just listening to pop music, you're just gonna make pop music. I listen to Adele, Yo Yo Ma, Gucci Mane.

I'm consistently recording and releasing stuff online or YouTube videos or whatever it is. I just don't know if it's going to be a full on, I'm the next Rihanna, or whatever. I'm not going for it to that level. But I love making music and I don't think I could stop if I wanted to.

Artie is a singer, and I'm a writer and player and a singer. We didn't work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.

I'm a traditional country singer and we're always trying to make that a fresh and modern sound. That's always going to be the challenge with me.

I've become a workaholic. When the shows slow down and there's no press and I can get my time to myself in the studio with my music, I get into this zone, man. I enter this incredible space where I'm just making music. And I feel like I can work with anybody - with Elton John, with Hanson - and I can make something incredible.

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.

When I was making my first record there would be something that would come out that would inspire you, you know? You'd see someone on TV or on the radio.

I wrote my first song, 'Conversion', to this little hip-hop instrumental. I went to an open-mic, plugged my iPod into the P.A., and sang over the beat.

When we make records, it's hard to pinpoint one thing that inspires a record. It's usually a number of different things that lead to inspiration or wanting to write something down and share it with someone.

My little brother and I took piano lessons at a young age and played music together later on in life just to play around at home until we decided to make a record. Eventually we started having more and more songs.

To me, it's all about opening all the doors and getting people to be not only prolific, but creative and having control of their music.

I do a lot of co-writing with my producer RedOne, and then a lot on my own. I just like to be creative.

'Gorgeous' was one of those records that, as soon as I heard the beat, I was like, 'Man, this is the one. This is that 'This Can't Be Life' Kanye beat.'

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.