I consider myself lucky that Sonu Nigam, Bikram Ghosh and Taufiq Quereshi came forward to create an original soundtrack to promote my book, something that hasn't been tried here before!
You can look at someone and get to know their music and say, 'This is someone who I want to work with.'
The main thing is we never dissolved our Gang Starr contract. We are still signed to each other. We never disbanded the group. If Guru really wanted to super-dead it he would have said, 'Yo, I want out.' And I still would have tried to convince him to stay. We are still Gang Starr.
F. Gary Gray, I think, is one of the best directors I've ever worked with in my life, and I'd love to work with him again.
I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.
My most frequent collaborators at S.N.L. are the incredibly gifted writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider!
I'll work with a director if I think I'm going to get into a comfortable situation, and if it's someone I respect and who respects me, even if they're not so well known. Movies are hard to make, and you have to work toward a common ethic and do your best.
Making a record is an intimate experience. A good producer can get things out of you that you can't get out of yourself.
I'm always going to talent scout and try to find new artists to work with.
I have worked with good directors, and I consider myself very lucky because I think that it is very important.
Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.
I view the whole thing as a collaboration. As an actor, I always found that to be the most freeing thing, when the director would collaborate with you, so that together you'd come up with something exponentially better.
I cannot exist as a solo artist.
I've worked with Robert Altman a couple of times too.
Hip-hop and R&B are especially fertile bases of collaboration. It always makes good records and good music.
I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful.
Luckily, I'm in a band with two other guys who really pull their own weight and have the skills and abilities to compensate for my weaknesses.
It's ludicrous to think people work for you: 'a film by...' doesn't exist. Directed by, maybe, but it's a film from a collective, a group of people whom you consult and seek your counsel and advice and vice versa, too.
My bottom line is that I think Ridley Scott is one of the greatest visual artists of our time and I feel very privileged that he wants to work with me, so I go with that flow.
When we write, we complement each other. We wrote six songs, Barry and I, while Robin was ill during the American tour, and they were terrible until Robin came back, and then everything worked out.
While I write for myself, I also write for other artists too.
When I put Foster The People together, I just wanted to play music with friends.
I've worked with Judd since 'Undeclared,' and once you work with Judd you never stop working with Judd.
Bjork, I'd love to do something with her. I'd love to do some sort of crazy orchestral choir thing with her.
Howie Greenfield and I started writing music when I was 13 and he was 16. We lived in the same building.
