Rihanna Quotes

I'll dabble here and there in different forms of the art, but the label has me locked down like a slave so, of course, I'll be doing albums during this time.

You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.

To me, Def Jam put my career on hold. I was used to making 13-14 songs a year, and they trickled that down to nothing.

Sometimes when I have an idea, and I say, 'Okay, let's - it will be great, maybe, if I sing in English, a couple of songs.' Now, the record company and everybody's like, 'No way, you have to sing in Spanish.' And that's, you know, really good for me.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

If I start trying to make a record for what I think could possibly get played on radio, I'm dead.

I don't see myself ever being in a position where I need to sign to a label.

When you get to a point where you're not beholden to a record company, then it's up to you to say, 'OK, enough knob-turning. We're done.'

Of course, I want to sell records, and of course I want to get played on radio, but it has to be about making the record that I'm proud of.

I'm really excited because Interscope is really focused on artists. They've been working side by side with me creatively and allowing me to make a lot of the creative decisions, which you don't always hear about. That's why I didn't want to sign originally with a major label.

If anything, I'm the most hesitant to bring on a label. That terrifies me. I think people believe major labels are linked to success. They're absolutely not that.

The plan is to keep on putting out records until someone shows up and tells us to stop.

Someone had an eye on me as I was leaving high school. I had a chance to record demos, but they were kind of wanting to make a pop singer out of me, of the 'X Factor' variety. I didn't feel comfortable with it. I wanted to be a songwriter.

Obviously, for Geffen, if it wasn't for us, it's quite possible that bands like Nirvana or Beck would not be on the label.

The Raspberries had recorded some ballads on every one of our albums, but after 'Go All The Way' was successful Capital pretty much wanted to hear nothing but 'Go All The Way.'

One of the main reasons why it didn't work out for me and Aftermath is because I felt my music should sound one way, and they felt it should sound another. But, I learned a lot from watching Dre, and when I left California, I knew it was time for me to get my own label.

You can be more creative when you're not feeling like a slave. When you're on a record label, they have you like that.

The record label used to try and make us do stuff, like dance, and we'd say, nah, not doing that.

I love doing third albums. A group makes its first album, and then the record company rushes them into the studio to make their second album. After that, they go, 'Whoa, wait a second.' They get a little more confident. They step back and say, 'Okay, now we're gonna do it.'

I always knew I wanted to create original material, and after having meetings with all sorts of record labels, I decided that Sony was the right place to do it. They knew what I wanted to make and gave me the freedom to express myself.

Partnering with Atlantic Records creates the opportunity to take what we're doing to the next level, without compromising.

After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.

We make sure we have total artistic control with our albums. We were working with Interscope Records, and they had a hard time with us having all the control. So when we signed with Warner Bros., we told them we would be working hands-on with our producer, and they were cool with it.

Atlantic has been great to me. They didn't flinch when I told them I was self-producing, and nobody was popping their head in the studio.

Leaving Interscope was not a personal thing. These record companies are a certain kind of machine, and we weren't able to function in it.