A Quote by El-P

At a young age, I really wanted to make music and make my own sort of thing. I'm sure if it wasn't music, it would have been writing, or it would have been maybe painting. I just always had the drive to try and make something with my hands and to just pull something out of myself and shape it and see it in front of me, if that makes any sense.
I never really planned on playing music. But it was a thing I'd always done, since I was young. So it just carried me away; I never really had to make a plan for it or make any decisions. It just sort of decided on me. And I don't know what the hell I would have done otherwise.
I take music really seriously. I haven't been doing this for too long, but I've been loving music for a long time. It wasn't really about other artists. I just wanted to do something more for me. I wanted to make a better life for my mom. I didn't have any way to take care of her, and I wanted to make a better way. Music was an outlet, so I went with it, and there you go.
I would say that I don't make music quickly; like, my process has been very slow, and my bar is very high, and I don't really rush to make music just to get something out there.
There's always so much music around me now, it seems like everything has to be something with music, so in my spare time I try not to listen to anything. It's so hard for me to listen to something without trying to see a benefit in it: "Maybe I'll make my own version of that track or maybe I'll do this or that." When I'm off I just don't want to hear anything.
I didn't know if it would be a successful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter...I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along...I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't...The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
For me, music is sort of my passion, more so than being an actor. I just never tried to make a career as a musician. It was just something that I did on my own time, just for me. I had written a lot of songs, but I don't really record a lot of music because, for me, it's the same way as a poet: I write to get things out. It's sort of cathartic.
I have a big brother who would make dolls' houses and playhouses and furniture out of wood. He was the one who taught me from such a young age that you could just make something. The physical act of gluing something together was really formative for me.
There's always so much music around me now, it seems like everything has to be something with music, so in my spare time I try not to listen to anything. It's so hard for me to listen to something without trying to see a benefit in it: 'Maybe I'll make my own version of that track or maybe I'll do this or that.'
Painting is my profession, because it has always been the thing that interested me most. I'm of a certain age, I come from a different tradition and, in any case, I can't do anything else. I'm still very sure that painting is one of the most basic human capacities, like dancing and singing, that make sense, that stay with us, as something human.
Independence was something I really wanted from a young age and I think it really helped me make sense of myself, more so than perhaps say going to university would have done.
When I started that's how I wrote because I didn't know any better. I was just like "I want to make music." Then there were all these things that I learned to get myself over certain humps, but I think it just comes down to: do I have something to say or not? If I'm feeling something I should try to get that out, and maybe it's not words, but trying to turn it into something.
I try to make music that's really real. I've always liked music that makes me feel something. I'm not a brain first, music second person.
I knew that I was writing for an American audience and that if I sold foreign rights, they would retranslate the book to make it make sense to that language. But one thing that was really important to me was not to italicize any of the words in the languages that were in the stories, because I feel like those foreign words felt just as important and integral to the story as everything else, so I wanted it all to just exist as its own thing.
If you are someone like Jeff Koons, and you have to work out how to make a big chrome heart or something, then there are lots of people and a big production involved. The money is more natural somehow. For me, I am just on my own in the studio, trying to make things work. One thing is sure: it doesn't make painting any easier.
Just dwelling on the past, I think it's really important for me to surround myself with positive people and just work really hard and really make the most out of the opportunity that God has given me, being able to make music, which I always wanted to do.
I'm creating my own oasis in my house. I've got a lot of calming, soothing things around my house. The way it's set up, it's supposed to just be a breath of fresh air. I can find solace in painting and writing. I honestly love what I do, so it's not too much for me. Creating is something I've always been able to do, whether it's making little cartoons or writing a full-length script. It's something I really, really enjoy. I'm trying to make the best of what I've been given.
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