Kenny Beats Quotes

I always have a ping-pong table in the studio. If you're with an artist and you notice the situation is going south a little bit, it's like, 'You wanna play ping-pong or foosball?' Or, 'You wanna go grab somethin' to eat?' And then you just like talk to them and relax them and get them comfortable and get yourself comfortable.

I used to have sort of mixed feelings about a producer whose only skills seemed to be going into the studio, schmoozing the artists and making them feel good. I can see now that in some cases, that's what you have to do because that's the only way you're going to get them to produce.

I would say almost 60 percent of working with Kanye - let's say 53 percent of working with Kanye - is speeches.

When you work with someone you don't quite know, you have to figure the director out, and you can come up with ideas that are counter-productive.

I think that sometimes, as producers, we just service the artists who's really just the main front or person. You know, our roles are really just to help them get where they're supposed to go.

I like working with writer-directors because you can solve problems right there.

And 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' was a very transitional film for me in that I was one of the producers and you know, came up with the idea with the writer and the producer, as well. But, it was a very collaborative event. You know, I really love working in that way.

I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it's me who has to come up with all the ideas.

I just love working with actors, and I love working with writers, working with designers. I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat, it doesn't matter. And the rooms I tend to be in are pretty democratic, and the best idea wins.

Putting out a debut album is a bit scary - I want it to be just right, so I took some extra time to finish it. Eminem's increased involvement has been such a blessing; I'm getting guidance from an artist I really admire and trust.

Magicians are typically introverted; they don't tend to work with others, but I work with software programmers, composers, designers, so it's a very diverse group and the result is always more interesting than something I could have done by myself.

If I'm writing for a particular artist, I definitely think about their past records, pay attention to the type of tempos that they like. If I have the privilege of actually being in the session with the artist, I just like to have a conversation with them.

I think most co-directors and co-writers just hold hands.

One of my favorite things about 'Castle' is the fact our writers and producers are so collaborative. They allow us to bring in ideas, and they try to make them happen for us.

If you think that something worked and your directing partner doesn't think so, then maybe you have to re-think what you were doing.

Any filmmaking, any film is a collaborative process. There's always a lot of people working on things together.

Whatever Kanye tells me, I just try to put it in my little machine and make the perfect solution for it. That's always our collab formula, and that's just how 'Gorgeous' came about.

If you're going to write a song, try to get together with a collaborator because it's better to write with collaborators.

You work in a band, and it tends to be more like moviemaking, I think. It tends to be more of a conscious, verbalized and, to some degree, political process.

You have to have that core creative team around you who's going to support your vision, and challenge and evolve it.

I've always been a very collaborative person, and I think 'Cop Car' and all the people I worked with who made it possible is a good example of that.

Mike Schur knows exactly what everything should look like but, at the same time, is super collaborative and loves working with actors that make choices and bring stuff to the table.

To me, as A&R people and as managers, we're in the business of finding talent. It's no different than working with these engineers who just want to make good products.

Behind every big artist, there's a big team.

I really do see everybody at Marvel Television as storytellers. They might have different titles, but whether they're actors or they're showrunners or they're somebody that answers the phone, all of them are storytellers.