El-P Quotes

Yeah, anybody can go in with two turntables and a microphone or a home studio sampler and a little cassette deck or whatever and make records in their bedrooms.

I knew that as a DJ from 1970 on up that I would eventually come with this sound. I brought out all these other break beats that you hear so much on a lot of these records.

DJing is how I got into So So Def.

I've been a DJ since I was about 13, and I started out as a hip-hop DJ. So I was always playing records that would just get people going. I was just doing parties and high school dances and whatever, and then, progressively, I started making my own music, writing little songs here and there, but it was never anything crazy.

Bad Name' is just that head-nod, traditional loop over a breakbeat, chopped up, and it sounds like the way I do my thing.

I made my first mixtape when I was 11.

I've been DJing mostly, and most DJs end up producing. That's just me.

Hip-hop is a part of rock & roll because it comes from DJ culture. DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.

My brother makes beats, and I DJ.

For me it all started with two turntables and a mixer.

I produce electronic kind of music, like EDM kind of stuff.

Around the time that I was in high school, a lot of rappers were coming out with mixtapes of them rapping over other people's instrumentals, specifically Young Money.

The sound system influence is undeniable in hip-hop, in jungle, drum and bass, now EDM.

All the Public Enemy albums, I knew what records they were sampling but was like, 'How'd they construct it like this?!'

I tried to embrace the concept of the sampler as an instrument, looking at how to take it artistically to another place where it can be appreciated, more than just taking someone's song and doing a 4-bar loop.

I consider myself more of a producer and a musician than a DJ.

I started DJ-ing in the '90s. DJ-ing is in every record I do. When I make records I make them for DJs.

I had also done a little disc jockeying.

Everything I make as a producer, I visualize it as a DJ first. And all those beats, I test them as a DJ.

I try to get the hip-hop aesthetic, most times without an MC. I don't use a rapper or a DJ to give it the hip-hop style; it's strictly the band that makes that music, which is a lot harder to do.

I've been DJing since before I could read the labels on the records.

I basically taught myself how to DJ, but I've been inspired by DJs throughout my whole career. I have some good friends that would hook us up with music. You learn some little things here and there from each DJ and you just take it and put your own style into to it.

The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with.

For my second record I had gotten ProTools (program) and started to familiar myself with hard disc recording.

I enjoy working with complicated equipment. A lot of my things started just with a rhythm box, but I feed it through so many things that what comes out sounds very complex and rich.