Domino Kirke Quotes

When we got with Dallas Austin, he was just getting on. He was kinda like the fourth member of TLC.

I like dropping into a small club and playing with some people, trying to help them get a start.

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

Nobody from my label called any of their labels to get this done. Most of it happened very naturally. Mary and I have been friends for a long time. Then Jay-Z offered.

There's timing. And then there's also certain people at the record company who worked incredibly hard and were incredibly enthusiastic about what I was doing.

It's about finding great artists and being part of their careers.

There's a system in place in Nashville, and for a long time, I was trapped in this idea that the only way to do it was to come to town, get a record deal, and do it the way they say. And that system works. But it caters to a specific kind of artist, and I didn't necessarily fit that mold.

I don't get mentioned in too many things that deal with hip-hop, really, because I'm not really friends with anybody. Not in the way where I'm enemies with them; I just don't meet people.

Butch Vig was a true friend and really guided us, and it was such a fulfilling relationship with a person to make records with.

'TTM' started off being a feature. A producer wanted me to just hop on the beat, like a Diplo type of thing. When I recorded the song, I liked it a lot, and I figured, instead of them paying me to do this, I'd rather just use this for my project, and we can just get money together.

Basically, there's a good friend of mine who works at EMI Publishing, a publishing company. He had asked me - he was like, you know, do you know this girl, Amy Winehouse? She's in New York for a day. She's kind of meeting people to maybe work with on her second album.

Brooklyn is where I primarily developed. I had an opportunity to make records and perform in clubs here and there, and I started networking with the right people in the right places.

I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.

We have a partnership deal with New Line Records, which is part of New Line Cinema, and... I worked on that.

BMG has been an awesome partner throughout my career, and with New London, we plan to continue bridging the gap between soul, pop, London, and New York - uniting them through music.

I was just glad to meet somebody outside of my group of small town friends who was into music. Somebody else who had aspirations to do something more than sing at a record hop.

He asked my girlfriend if we could come over and sing some of the songs that we had written, which we did. After he heard the songs, he said that he knew someone in the record business by the name of Bob Shad.

For a producer, you want to be in L.A. You want to be close to the action, and in L.A. there are always singers, artists, songwriters, collaborators and other producers. It's easy to get access to all that, which gives you more opportunity to work records.

The only person I have regrets about is Miles Davis. He and I had become good friends after we did a photo shoot, and coincidentally, we kept running into each other at parties and stuff. I regret not having written a hit for Miles Davis.

Drake was a fan before a friend. He already was a Cash Money millionaire. When opportunity came, maybe we put the most on the table. That was my thinking because I just thought that this was a very talented young man. We saw a future with him, so it was about him being comfortable.

I tried to bang down a lot of doors but Virgin were the only label who believed in what I was doing. I ended up with the label that understood what I was trying to do.

I met Ne-Yo in London. I sang for him and he said, 'I want to sign you.' It was amazing - it meant my name was buzzing around the industry and I got to meet lots of different labels.

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it's not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

With the Beatles, we'd been very spoiled because we had George Martin who worked for the record label we were going to be signed to. That was very fortunate, because we grew together.

It seems that for all of the artists signed to a major, there exists the same amount of artists that are struggling to break through to the surface within the label. I think, ideally, we'd end up with a very well connected competent indie team that will be along with us for the ride, however long that ride may be.