Musicians make up for the copies of their songs that get pirated by performing live. I don't think there will be as many people showing up to hear me read as to hear Beyonce sing. We need to make sure piracy is dealt with effectively.
It's not about what hits Billboard or how many views you got on a video. It's about copies sold. It's about streams, you know?
The desire to hit a big home run is dominating the music business.
The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful.
I think the Internet was the saving grace for Public Enemy. Before that, travelling the world saved Public Enemy.
I truly believe, as an institution, most major labels should just die.
When you do mixtapes, a lot of times your fanbase can say, 'We've been getting this for free for so many years, his new album is about to drop, we've listened to it, and we're not going to buy it. We'll download it for free.'
A lot was accomplished in my mixtape career. But I still needed a few things: I needed to be recognized. I need to have radio. I need to have a real retail machine that can get us where we need to get that.
Good bands won't get famous anymore unless they get really lucky.
In a way, the traditional album is no longer as important as it used to be. But at the same time, I don't want to be the kind of artist who just releases one song after another.
I can still make a living with touring. And maybe you buy a t-shirt. And I would rather 10 million people get my record and listen to it for free than 500,000 that I coerced to pay $15 for it, you know?
I have had the good fortune to experience both the limelight and the traffic light as a musician. I did my first recording on my own and it was available at concerts. The second to seventh were released on small and then large labels. My eighth to 14th were done under my own steam once again, but with the benefit of the Internet.
There's no problem with fans and bands. There's a problem with the economics of the outside disruption of the industry.
I have been working and composing music since 1986. Over the years, I have seen our music industry go through all kinds of transformation.
Amazon.com isn't the same as going down an aisle. The same as record stores. You'll go for Billie Holiday, and you buy Gustav Mahler as you're going out the door.
I don't want to be a small-time, independent, successful rapper.
With the advent of radio and recording, music became an industry rather than just a tradition.
I think when you go to a store and you go to the Justin Timberlake page and stream it from there, that's great, but that means you went to the store. iTunes Radio lets you discover it without you having to think about it.
When I started playing music, people weren't selling 5 million records. That was not the standard; that was not the focus.
Translation and UnitedMasters, which is all one company, is my vision and my dream, and I think it's today's reality of the convergence between storytelling, technology, and culture.
The Band never really played big concert tours. We never sold millions and millions of albums.
After putting out songs with 26 million views on YouTube, your life changes a little bit. Suddenly everyone's like, 'Where's the album?'
The whole experience of getting an album from an artist you like and listening to it from beginning to end is sort of gone. Now it's piecemeal.
MTV made a huge impact. Heavy rotation took you from selling 1m albums to 20m albums, and that meant a lot of dough.
I want to build a fanbase. I want people to like my albums even more so than singles.
