Madlib Quotes

I love sampling, and RZA loves sampling, too.

A lot of people hear things on the radio and try to make their own version of that.

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

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

The difference between doing a remix and an original track is that when you do a remix, you obviously already have the original track as a starting point. But with the originals you start from scratch.

I don't sample. I'm not like one of these guys who concoct some beat on my sampler and just turns it in.

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

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.

Remixes come very quickly, because you already have the melody and the vocals. I have a great passion for music, so it doesn't matter to me if it's a remix or an original production. I don't think about it as, 'Well, I have to spend three hours on a remix or I have to do something all original.'

I have never taken more than two weeks to record an album throughout my career.

I'm taking a lot of freestyle music and flipping it.

I guess we decided to make a new record 3 years ago when Nancy was done scoring for Almost Famous.

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

With '5 Boroughs,' we were each working on beats, sitting in front of our laptops and samplers.

I definitely like making music in the studio, but I never had it out to make a CD specifically.

I'm used to producing all of my projects, doing all the beats, and writing all the hooks.

Sometimes you're inspired by an old-school song that you want to chop up and make a sample out of it. I find that with a lot of older Motown music.

One of the things that I loved about working on that first album was working with Billy Mann, who produced the album, and all the people who worked to finish it. Just seeing how they did things and learning.

I probably started trying to make beats at around 12.

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

I started making beats in high school.

I just record whenever I can, whenever I'm home, whenever I have access to something that can make music.

My job is to make beats and make something hot.

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

Today a record producer is even more involved and is often the production's sole musician, one person playing all the instruments one-by-one.