DJ Khaled Quotes

I'm a beat hoarder. I'll record five songs in a year and I still hoard beats.

My philosophy for producing a record is for everyone involved, including myself, to get out of the way of the song, and at the same time, listen to it as closely as you can, and listen to where the song wants to go.

Demos are something you do in the early stages of your career, but when you get going, you just go in and record the song.

I know how it feels to go into a studio to start a record, and eight weeks later it's finished. I know how an intense schedule feels.

I never write. Never! I do not even remember if I can write … This is a true freestyle in general. I put a beat, I said some stuff, I retain ideas, I do it again, with a particular intonation, I test, and especially I record live.

But we're still rehearsing and planning to make a new album next year. We have some really good new songs that we've already been playing on that last tour that we just finished.

See, I'm not the type of writer that has 400 songs in a suitcase someplace on the shelf. I'm sort of a rise-to-the-occasion-type of writer, so when I know I'm going to record, I get in the mood to write.

Sometimes when I'm writing a song I'll get carried away with production when I'm only on the first verse, and that sacrifices the songwriting.

There's nothing harder than making a mellow, clean record. It's really scary. I can see why people would never want to do it.

I still feel like if I can get a song to work with, say, a basic beat, a rhythm, some chord changes, and a melody, a vocal melody - if it works with that, then I feel it's written and there's something there. So I intentionally don't get involved with arranging stuff or fussing over the sounds and the edits and the beats too much, at least not in the beginning, because I feel like then you can fool yourself that you've got something there, when you might not.

We just did a bunch of songs, and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the songs that we made. We didn't feel like we had to do Miike Snow. We just did it because, I mean, I guess we felt like it would be a bit of a shame to leave it where we left it.

I always work on the songs all together up until the very end. I never mix a song and think, "Okay, now that one's done." I think that's why it feels like songs are really connected, and I like that. They're all worked on kind of like a little family.

Whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write - no matter how bad they are - get recorded.

I think, you know, for me, whatever I need to slot into to make that music the best it can be or help the artists, or whoever I'm working with, achieve whatever vision they have in their head for a song.

I just do as many songs as I can and then I put it together when I get sort of in the middle, maybe 30 songs, that's when I start really thinking about the name of the cd and what direction all the songs are going, that kind of stuff. But I don't ever want to corner myself, I just want to be able to express whatever I can express in songs and just pick after that.

That's kind of the weird thing about Salad Days. I had to block time off from touring and tell my management and label like no press, no nothing. Let me make an album. You guys are running me dead.

Being a producer is a very different experience than writing my own songs.

For us, the stuff we know is writing songs, playing shows, and that's what we're trying to concentrate on. Not trying to read about yourselves or looking up things about yourselves on the Internet - it's the key, or you'll go insane!

I'm doing more than just making songs for the radio. I want it to be a well rounded sounding experience.

I have tried to write songs quickly that get scrapped. I've also taken a long time on songs that get scrapped because you can over-think something, and you've squeezed the life out of it. As opposed to work of art, it looks like a really great work of craftsmanship.

New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it.

It's the way I enjoy making art - I like sitting down and making five beats; I enjoy that process. I can go two weeks without making a song and just making beats and I'll be OK.

Once you feel that you've learned some skills and you know how to make records, the next thing is, "Do we ever get to make one that people will really like?" Because then we'll have something to do.

It was [Kanye West] who spoke, and then we met and recorded some songs. After, you know what it is: we all bump like crazy.

When I was first writing, I used to sit at the piano and play songs - I'd write one or two a night. It was my hobby. At some point, it then became a process that was mainly done within the context of the studio, and writing became part of the recording process.