Kelela Quotes

It really does take a lot of time to make records, to be in the studio and do all that stuff.

You get the beats. You write to them. You go in the studio and lay it down. Hopefully, a song comes out sounding good. If it comes out sounding good, you put it to the side with the rest of the other good ones, and you try to decide which ones you're gonna use on the album.

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.

It is quite normal these days to record a song in the absence of the composer.

I love putting the music together. It's like art.

I get very deep into the writing and recording process.

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 was about 11 when my mother brought me this karaoke machine and I was really into it back then, but about 4 or 5 years ago is when I started printing up my own music, going to the studio and doing my own thing.

For the most part, I like to record music as I write it.

I don't think there is anything hard at all about having a lot of songs. It makes it easier to be less precious about them, and know that everybody's going to want to work on some of them.

I like to make great albums.

With music, you're working with a producer, and you walk out of the studio six hours later with a track that's almost completely finished. There's an almost immediate payoff.

Every record has been very different, so I can't really compare them. The first record was good. I originally recorded about half the songs on that one in 2003 or something, and then I went back a few years later and re-recorded them and added some other songs.

Recording 'Ten,' we probably did 'Even Flow' 30 times.

A lot of getting a song done is booking the studio time.

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

We rarely write in the studio. Everything's already completely arranged before we go in. That way, we can really focus on getting the recording right.

The first record took us, like, a year and a half to make. The second one took 21 days, including weekends.

On the 'Escondido' album, I think it took us a month to make that album.

I can spend hours and hours and days and days in the studio changing the music, because I love that.

If the beat feels like it don't make you move right, I scrap that and go to another track. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour to get one done.

For us, we make a song, and if we like it, it goes on a record.

I still find time to record during the season. Offseason, I record every day until 7 A.M. - all night.

When you work with Drake, you don't really work with Drake. You send him the song, he rap on it, then y'all done worked together. So it ain't like me and him sitting in the studio.

Every time somebody asks me, 'Oh, when you mix your own music, what are you going to make?' And I don't know.