Rakim Quotes

I always said, if I got a record deal, I'd want to record the best songs I could, whether I wrote them or not.

I'm really excited because Interscope is really focused on artists. They've been working side by side with me creatively and allowing me to make a lot of the creative decisions, which you don't always hear about. That's why I didn't want to sign originally with a major label.

In my music career, I never was interested in working and writing and creating songs based on what kind of rewards I could receive in return - a hit song, per se, is what most contemporary artists have to deal with when they deal with a label.

I always knew I wanted to create original material, and after having meetings with all sorts of record labels, I decided that Sony was the right place to do it. They knew what I wanted to make and gave me the freedom to express myself.

To me, Def Jam put my career on hold. I was used to making 13-14 songs a year, and they trickled that down to nothing.

I'm continuing to produce and will start a new record soon, as well.

Having a solo career is a funny thing.

I feel like once the song is done, you put it out there and if people want to do bizarre remixes, if people want to make strange videos, great. You know, like chaos theory applied to the music business.

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.

I'm confident being at Universal, which is a great home for me, 'cause they understand what I'm trying to do.

I never liked making albums.

I have just enough people paying attention that I have the freedom to be in charge. And I have a great record company - Nonesuch understands what I'm about.

When I came back to California in the early '60s I was hanging out with Jimmy Bowen, Phil Spector, and I wanted to be a record producer and work with other artists.

I don't write songs thinking about formats, where is it going to get played, who am I gonna please, what's the outlet for it.

Recently, I've been working on anew album of material, which should be out in the new Millennium. I'm not sure which song will be put out as a single, but I'm still hoping to get another record in the charts.

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

I've done two albums for Concord Records; one was with Al Jarreau and it did very well for us. The second album was called 'Songs And Stories,' and it had good songs and good performances, but I promised them I would do an album that was more jazz-oriented.

I'm working on my new album right now. Hopefully to get that out at the top of 2005, January 2005.

I just really want to make albums - and however I can, I will.

You know, I get a lot of people pitching songs to me.

I'm releasing a single. It's called 'Live it Up.' It was based on my Euro trip. I only write my own music. I don't let other people write it at all. So I've been working on that a lot. There's three singles coming out. The producer of The Fray who did their double-platinum album 'How to Save a Life,' I'm working with him. He's producing me.

My relationship with Music Row has always been, from my end, optimistic and hopeful that there is more than one way to approach the writing, recording, and marketing of an album.

It became a question of do I want to be on a label where it could take three years to put out a record instead of putting out three records over the same period of time on my own.

When we finished the tour we had been writing together for a year. We moved forward from there and have just now finished our record. We're having a new record out in the Spring.

We went into that knowing that we were never going to sell a major record 'cause we didn't sound like these bands, so I just thought this was an opportunity for us to make the kind of records that we wanted and make some money at the same time.