El-P Quotes

I've been making beats since I was, like, 12.

I started making beats in high school.

Sampling is very important for me. It's the backbone of hip-hop.

I started making beats when I was nine in my bedroom and garage.

My job is to make beats and make something hot.

My brother makes beats, and I DJ.

There's an open door now more than ever to be making any type of beats that you want.

When I was nine, ten, I was super young, but I installed a program on my computer so I could start producing music. I just started messing around. Then, after a couple of years, I got better. I actually learned some tricks, so I knew what I was doing instead of just messing.

There was this cereal, and it had a special promotion with a CD inside the box that had a really simple music-making program on it. I got it, and that opened my mind to being able to make music on a computer and seeing all the different layers.

One day, my mum bought me this music production software for my computer, and I started making beats... I realised it was more like production than a video game, but it was a video game when I was playing it. That's how I got into music production.

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

Premier came into the picture when were starting to make our own beats and all that.

I used to re-create the beats that I heard.

When I was in middle school, that's when I first started making beats. I was maybe 14, 16, something like that.

I became this dorky 15-year-old, in my bedroom all the time with crossed eyes, staring at my computer. It was all drum loops, R&B and pop - silly songs that I hope to God no one ever hears. But that's what got me in to music.

I had eJay, and then I had Acid Pro. I had a crack of both of them, and I would just make little loops, and then I'd hum along to them. I used to spend a lot of time on a computer looking for music and making beats and stuff.

I've always had a fascination with making your own music but never have been skilled enough to play the instrument, so to be able to make music without the ability was awesome.

My brother's been producing rap music and hip-hop for maybe 10 years.

I think I prefer producing a little more than DJing because you have more freedom, you can make anything you want; it doesn't necessarily have to be four to the floor. You can go more with your mood, or the atmosphere that you're in.

I played more of an advisory role with Public Enemy. I really trusted them to make the music that they wanted to make, and the way The Bomb Squad worked with the... they created their whole own world of music.

My son is a hip-hop producer.

I never had any plans to become a producer when I was a kid. I wanted to be a DJ, like most other kids at the time. Then my mum bought me a Casio keyboard and I started to sample sounds that I liked.

I've been more and more into production lately, and I really, really love that. I love recording.

I would get out of school and go straight to my computer to create beats.

I love sampling, and RZA loves sampling, too.