Steve Aoki Quotes

I started my own record label.

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to start a record label.

If I was rich enough, I would love to launch my own record label. I would love to try and give all my musically talented friends a start in the industry.

There are people who are genetically made to start record labels, and I'm not one of those people. People just have it in their blood and are good at it. Corey Rusk from Touch and Go and Ian MacKaye. These are people who have made their own labels.

I was signed to a record label at the same time as my friend Elliot Murphy, who makes great records to this day.

I'm developing artists for my new record label, my son's band, Intangible, being one of them.

I've started my own record label - Jeepney Music - and I want to put out my own stuff and also stuff by other Filipino artists.

I want to invest and have my own record label and artists. I want to have a business where my kids, kids, kids will still have something going on long after I'm gone.

Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.

So it was out of necessity that Blackheart was born. I think it's great that now, 25 years later, we're not only putting out our own music, but are able to put out music by other bands. That's really exciting for us.

My function at Verve was that of a genuine producer in artists and repertoire.

I love TV. I love being behind the scenes on a TV show but there's something about, I don't know there's something very special when you've signed an artist and that first record comes in and it's a good record. It is an indescribable feeling.

I've been part of running a label since I was a kid, so I understand how it works. But the more and more I learn about it, the less and less interested I am in it.

When I first started out in the music industry and went to Elektra Records, I didn't go to be an artist, I went to get a record label started. And they said in order to have a label deal, I had to be an artist - so that's what I did.

Shoot, there's a committee to tell you everything at a record label. You definitely have to know who you are if you want to look like you at the end of the process. We've all seen people get record contracts, and by the time they're spit out by the machine, we don't even recognize them.

I'm from Israel, so America has no limits. I started a record label, and then I started managing other artists, like Liza Minelli.

If you want a studio to back you, you want to be doing something that's been done to death!

I wanted to produce Nancy LaMott's albums, so I created my own record company.

I will be developing artists for my new label. The rest is in God's Hands.

When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to... because I was looking for a deal. I didn't have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.

Major labels act as banks in terms of how they produce and release your album. No major label is really good or bad; they just 100 per cent operate as a business, which makes sense... no hard feelings.

My passion is music, you know, and music influences culture, influences lifestyle, which leads me to 'Roc-A-Wear'. I was forced to be an entrepreneur, so that led me to be CEO of 'Roc-A-Fella' records, which lead to Def Jam.

Bob Hurwitz, the president of Nonesuch, the company that releases my records, is a mentor. He taught me how to assemble a script to record an album.

Jimmy Iovine has been telling me since 2012 that I needed to start my own label with my own artists. This was when he first met me and 'Bandz a Make Her Dance' was first taking off.

With my previous record deal, it'd be like, 'OK, so I have this track then, EMI - do you know any singers, maybe? Do you have any singers on your little label there?' And funnily enough, they didn't. But I prefer finding unknown singers myself anyway.