Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by DJ Premier - Page 2

If you don't have any Coltrane, 'A Love Supreme' will do it for you. It will explain everything. Even if you don't get it, it will still explain everything. That's how deep it is.

From Jay-Z to Nas to Kanye to whoever, I'm just not the type to say, 'Hey, let me get on your album.' If they want me, they're going to reach out and say, 'I need a joint from you.'

I think the fact that Gang Starr kept getting more and more successful was the reason we never thought about our age.

I don't usually collab with producers, because I don't need to. I never have, because I don't want to break my style of how I do things.

I'm not really a comparison dude. Even when people say 'Big or Pac?,' because they're two totally different types of lyricists.

I can't make the new generation like me, because they didn't grow up on me. So I stick to what I know.

That's the thing with social media: it's a gift and a curse. It's cool on one level, but it's also bad.

I'm cool with Dr. Dre, I have his phone number, and he picks up when I call.

If I gotta do a Jay-Z beat I want to stop everything. Tell everybody hold my calls, everything.

I don't shop beats. That was never my method coming up. I think it's very strange to have a CD of 30 or 40 beats and then just pick one.

I'm a big rock 'n' roll head, I love country music, I love yodeling music. But I'm still black and funky.

I always followed my heart and if my heart said I gotta pack up and go, I'm gone.

I get up early all the time.

God knows I'm a good guy, I'm known in the industry as a good guy. I'm not known to be a foul, evil dude that you've got to watch out for and my name is not muddy in the industry.

The ghetto music of my era is hip-hop. And Parliament, and Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye, that was all the ghetto stuff when I was a baby, and then when I was a teenager it was hip-hop and we were taking all those old '70s sounds and recreating them and putting them into a hip-hop format.

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've always wanted to work with Klashnekoff. He's been around for years! He's sorta my age but he is dope. The flow, the lyrics, it's just dope music.

I used to lie about my age at first because you always want to be 18, but then you start looking at it and you're 40, and the money's still coming. And you're like, 'Man, who cares about that?'

I say if you don't write your lyrics, then you can't be the best rapper alive. Not at all. You can be one of the best artists, especially in rap, you gotta write everything yourself.

I don't have session players come in and guitars, I'm doing the drums, I'm doing the scratching, I'm doing every sound you hear and that's always been my way. And not only that, I'm very meticulous about it just sounding right.

Jazz came from the streets, hip-hop came from the streets. It's just a different language. It's all borne out of hard times, struggle, and the fight to have equality and things be better.

I've been listening to Herbie Hancock forever. He's gone through so many transitions, even before bringing hip-hop to the forefront with 'Rockit' and everything.

I'm real particular about delivery. You can write the illest rhymes in the world, but can you deliver it right?

I'm known for taking a long time getting music out, partially, my schedule is bananas, I'm only human, and then on top of that, I'm a one-man-producer.

I like soul, I like rock, I like new wave, I like punk music, I like blues, I like jazz, and I was brought up on all of them from a young boy all the way to my teenage years, when I was wild and crazy, in college.

Me and Tupac were long-time friends.

I came out with sounds that didn't sound like the usual hip-hop beat. I took that chance because no one would identify with me if I sound like somebody who's already out.

Black men, we're known for getting into some drama with other black men, specifically black-on-black crime. We're used to the confrontational attitude.

I use whatever it takes to make the tracks identify what me and Guru are all about.

I like when people don't think I can pull things off.

You have to know who you're making music for.

Jazzmatazz' was Guru's thing, but Gang Starr was his baby. I don't care what anybody says. That dude loved Gang Starr.

Everybody knows with rap artists, if you can't go to the hood, it's almost like you're not authentic, even if you're a dope artist that's respected.

Anyone from our era knows that Guru was in every club and every bar and every spot. He could go all night, all day. And he would never be tired!

All of our other albums were consecutive year after year: 'No More Mr. Nice Guy,' 'Step in the Arena,' 'Daily Operation,' 'Hard to Earn.' After 'Hard to Earn,' a four-year gap is a lot of not having Gang Starr music, as far as an album is concerned.

I've never sampled just one artist, I'm known for my reputation and my creativity.

Dre is someone I've looked up to since 1985 when he came to my college and performed with The Wrecking Crew.

All my idols have been in the studio with me, because they wanted to be there.

I'm super cool with Kanye.

I'm from the pre-Pro Tools era where you had to meet up with the artist and go over things if you wanted to record a track.

Lil Wayne, I ain't mad at him man, he did his thing, he stepped up his lyrical game, he the most improved rapper out of anybody. I've seen him from childhood status to what he's doing right now. He stepped up his rap game, so he deserves the success he had. And no one else was even doing near what he was doing, so I applaud him too.

All music is good music, if it touches your soul.

I don't want to follow the map of what the music industry does because I've already lived the industry and I still live the industry so I already understand how it works. The industry doesn't really like us around anyway once we get older because we know too much so, that's fine - cut us off - and we'll find another way to get it out there.