DJ Premier Quotes

I tried to make a 'When Doves Cry' in a rap version. I used a lot of instruments and I broke it down like I thought Prince would do, and that's the song I sent to Big Boi.

A lot people don't know that Mannie Fresh is one of my favorite producers because I used to just be fascinated with how he would be producing stuff. He'd be silly, too, when he raps.

One of my favorite moments was when me and Jay-Z made a song 'For Rhyme or Reason.' It ended up on 'Reasonable Doubt,' but they switched the beat because we couldn't get clearance from my label.

It just so happened that the sound I've developed has the Memphis origins to it that made Drake wanted to work with it.

I wanted to write songs from the ground up, I wanted to sit at a piano and build around that. But I still have a lot of love for hip-hop, so I want to do more collaborations in that sense.

All the 'Scarface' beats that you hear Mobb Deep sample, that was my idea.

You should find the dopest producer in your area, and that producer is always going to want songs written to his beat.

I would say my dream collaboration would probably have to be with Drake. I think he is an amazing artist.

A lot of the stuff I've accumulated over the last few years of touring I thought was really interesting. Like sounds, sound bites, and beats even, but they weren't good dance beats they weren't ones anyone would want to rap over or anything.

This is sort of not expected, but I would love to produce a record for Missy Elliott. It would be totally different, but she makes party music. 'Lose Control' was my favorite song when I was in 5th or 6th grade.

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.

Nothing on 'Relapse' and very little on 'Recovery' was produced by me.

In hip hop, it's a lot more about lacing a hot track. I start it, I help mix it, I help write it, I help produce it, I cut the person's vocals. I'm involved from the beginning to the end of a song. I'm not just giving someone a beat, you know?

A lot of the hip hop artists don't write music. They write words.

Dr. Dre, my oldest brother, he paved the way for me and Snoop to get a chance to get into the studio. I asked him to show me how to work the MPC-60... I was about maybe 17, 18, right around there.

Quentin Tarantino is a hip-hop artist. I told him, 'You're hip-hop!' You keep seeing surprises, and a clip here and there, because Quentin is hip-hop. A hip-hop artist will drop a single, leak something over here, and drop something over there 'cause he knows it's hot. He's on the spot with the way he does things.

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.

I'd met Dr Dre, he was thinking about his next album, we talked a little and he said, 'Let me give you some of these loops and see what you come up with'.

I'll hear a beat and think, 'How can I make this a banger?' I'll write the lyrics on my phone or on a piece of paper, and either way, it's going to be a slapper.

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.

50 Cent's a songwriter. He understood and liked my music, but he didn't understand me.

I used to record but just in my own studio or in my friend's back when I toyed with the idea of being a rapper.

Hip-hop has survived as a sonic practice more than anything else. It's an approach to music-making based in sampling and rhyming over beats, that's proven far more versatile than its detractors thought it would.

Three 6 Mafia have been around for a long time; we've made a lot of music. Anybody's music can influence anybody. I've heard people say that our music has influenced such and such, and it could be true, and it could not.

'Cruise Control' was the first track me and Wiz Khalifa ever did. I made the beat on that, and I played guitar on it.