Damon Dash Quotes

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

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.

Berry Gordy has always been this hazy legendary figure that I've known about in my childhood that was responsible for everything that I found important in the world.

Music is one of those businesses in which, if you're talented and hustle hard enough, you can make it - specifically as an entrepreneur. If you look as far back as Berry Gordy, Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell, L.A. Reid, and Sean 'Diddy' Combs, there's a whole lineage of successful black entrepreneurs who have built their own companies from scratch.

I'm trying to be the Dr. Dre of Cleveland.

I'm a rapper to a lot of people. But I'm also someone who is very entrepreneurial.

I've met plenty of CMOs in life, and I always say that I've never met any that can hold a candle to rock stars, who I truly believe are the greatest brand managers in the world.

Def Jam is the reason why I started a label.

Interscope Records has always been a heat-seeking missile when it comes to shifts in popular culture, whether inciting them or reacting to them swiftly.

Roc Nation has an army. I'm happy because this is what I needed. I have the music, but they have the muscle.

This is more in regards to celebrities. What we've got to understand is that we are the influencers of the hip-hop culture, the black culture. We are the way out, you feel what I'm sayin'? As far as who we look to and where we get stuff from - hip-hop culture is influencing the world, really, but especially the black communities.

Spice Girls appealed to little girls. It wasn't good music - mums would buy the albums for their kids - it was all about the gimmicks.

'The Fire in The Booth' exposed me to a wider audience. I had hundreds of thousands of followers, loyal followers before that, that's been following me on the journey.

Bands speak for us in this inevitable way that you can't get anywhere else because it is this perfect balance of artistic expression and popular culture.

There's a fine line between artist and product. I don't think the industry purposely does it, but I think that's just the way they maneuver. You have to be careful that doesn't become your story, where you become a product, and your art is tarnished because you're just seen as a tool to make money.

I don't know how the rap game is, because I'm a fan of reality, and the rap game's entertainment.

We cut songs that touch us because if they don't touch us first, there's no way in the world we're going to be able to sell those songs to somebody else.

Record labels and producers are not looking to change you: they are looking to make a star. And what they might think is a star may not be you.

England's a small nation, and the pop music industry is built on fashion.

So many bands have the same performance-based videos, and it's so lame. I know bands whose labels rent a crowd, so they have these fake audiences that jump up and down trying to make it look like a pit or something.

I don't really know the logistics of a Soundcloud rapper.

I think it's impossible for hip-hop to be a dying art form.

I used to grind. I be telling people, you don't grind, you don't sell. I was like 15, 16 getting dropped off in the city by myself, with my own beat CDs.

I'm really excited about 'Love & Hip Hop.'

If I were to give advice to someone that just started a band and how to get someone's attention, you've gotta have a central hub. For us, it was Columbus, Ohio.