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.
I feel very lucky to get to fly the flag of RCA Records and Sony Music.
Those folks at Death Row were the Rolling Stones of their time.
I joke that we're not dissimilar to a rock band in the '70s.
I think 'Interscope' always puts the artist first, and they're focusing on these artists' development. I felt like that was a part of my career that I kind of needed to focus on after having come from the radio and getting exposure that way. I wanted to grow my brand and grow my fanbase, and they have proven to be the best fit for that.
When I was signed, that was before the punk thing even happened.
I remember when I first came out as an artist, back in 2004 or 2005, the record label used to take me to all the radio stations and just have me sit in, like, their lunchroom or their conference room, and play for the whole staff. Just to introduce them to me so they would play my records.
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.
I think all the bad blood started when Geffen released a greatest hits package of my solo stuff.
One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?'
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.
After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.
I had to put me foot down with the first record company. It was about 1975, when singers were being given names like Gary Glitter and Alvin Stardust, so they wanted to call me Benny Santini just because me dad's an Irish-Italian with an ice-cream business!
My whole team, it wasn't about putting the album out, it was about getting off the record company and going independent or going to another label. To the point we were like, 'Listen, just take 'Lasers.' You can have whatever percentage off the next ten records I do for the rest of my life. I just do not want to be here anymore.'
An album is a project with which you have to hit hard.
I had a style before I was signed, but now I'm developing my commercial sound as well as trying to strike a balance between authentic music and music that the masses will love.
I don't want to be a small-time, independent, successful rapper.
People are always coming up to me, thinking I've got some magic wand that can make them a star and I want to tell them that no one can do that. Making hit records is not that easy. But it took me time to realize that myself.
When the first record came out, I'd go down to radio stations pretty much every day to get the record played, and I would walk in and they'd tell us how much they loved the record, but they weren't sure how much they could play it because they were already playing a girl.
I signed with Kanye back in 2003, and at that time, 'The College Dropout' hadn't even come out, so he was still relatively unknown compared to where he is now. He wasn't a household name; people were still calling him 'Kane.'
Major labels act as banks in terms of how they produce and release your album. No major label is really good or bad; they just 100 per cent operate as a business, which makes sense... no hard feelings.
It's not an uncommon event for artists and labels to part ways - Patty Loveless, Vince Gill both did - and it often happens for the better.
At 18, I finally came into a relationship with a record label. My family got back on its feet. I was happy.
My first record wasn't even with the Fugees. I was signed to Big Beat Records, so I was signed back in 1989 to the label that the Knocks are on now. You can always tell which generation had the pulse based on how they see things.
Somebody will come on TV singing, and you're like, 'Oh my God! I mean, they suck! You know, who signed them?' Well, it's just because she's good lookin', or it's because he's takin' his shirt off and he's muscley or something, or else he wouldn't have gotten his chance.
