Wale Quotes

You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process. You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.

The world has changed a lot since I started making records.I used to go into a studio and there were songs there, chosen for me to see if I liked them. I wasn't encouraged to write.

When I make records, I never listen to stuff after it's done. Ever.

I'm free to do what I please, I'm probably not going to do albums. Just because I think releasing tracks as singles is a better way for me to stay topical.

You've got major artists releasing albums on their own and eschewing the major system. I think that breeds excitement and creativity.

You go in and record and sing them some and you go back in and rerecord and sing them some more. That's kind of how I did this album [The Art of Elegance].

I know how it feels to go into a studio to start a record, and eight weeks later it's finished. I know how an intense schedule feels.

Someone told me once that Lucinda Williams takes six years between albums, and that's what stuck to me; it's like, you really are a factory. You don't do things to make them, on your own time.

It takes so long to make a record and then it takes so long again to release it.

We never sit down before we start making a record and talk about this new sonic palette that we are going to try to explore. We always let the record kind of reveal itself to us over time.

I've recorded 25 or 30 albums. I know that sometimes when you work with producers who are kinda dictators, it doesn't help you make a better record.

There hasn't been one moment in my career where I felt I didn't have any control over the creative aspects of my records.

I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've ever had has been about 50-50 songs I've written or co-written and other people's songs.

It was kind of easier for me to do records that didn't take a year or two years of my life to write and to make.

Mutineer is the first album of mine without a demo stage.

I'm not an artist that makes singles, I'm an artist that makes albums, and it's a totally different thing.

Making an album is a long process, but it's a fun process.

I've been lucky to be able to make the records I've wanted to make. The record company has never pressured me to cut certain songs.

I don't think people realize how much work it takes to make an album.

Growing up as a singer, and a cast member, and now as an adult, a songwriter, I get the luxury of choosing the kinds of songs that I want to sing, because I'll write, you know, hundreds of songs. Even though only 12 appear on the album. That's 12 that I've chosen to sing of my catalog.

We just wrote songs that seemed good to us. We wrote the album in like two weeks. We could have had more time, but we accomplished what we needed to in the two weeks.

The only thing they really get to pick is the single. But I get to pick the producer, the songs on the record, the final masters, the artwork. Basically, I hand them a record.

Songs are not on a conveyor belt. I'm not chopping them up and putting them out.

I don't believe in making a record and rushing it.

The actual making of a record is the most exciting part of this business.