A Quote by El-P
I'm not trying to change the face of hip-hop music. I'm trying to make my records and always take the next step for me.
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I've always wanted to introduce hip-hop filmmaking to film. There's hip-hop art, dance, music, but there really isn't hip-hop film. So I was trying to do that.
Hip-hop was started as a very egocentric, testosterone, machismo-driven art form. The way that people are trying to take away that masculinity that is a such an intrinsical part of hip-hop music.
I am trying to change hip-hop music because I do feel there are places people can go with production and the structure of an album that they haven't gone yet. But, like I said, I don't have any delusions of grandeur. I just want to make music that doesn't make me bored.
When I made Illmatic, I was trying to make the perfect album. It comes from the days of Wild Style. I was trying to make you experience my life. I wanted you to look at hip-hop differently. I wanted you to feel that hip-hop was changing and becoming something more real.
I was a hip-hop head. When I really found my own lane in music, it was hip-hop. I wanted to make hip-hop music. And I did, I made a lot of hip-hop music.
This is the thing about hip-hop music and where people get it most misconstrued: It's all hip-hop. You can't say that just what I do is hip-hop, because hip-hop is all energies. James Brown can get on the track and mumble all day. But guess what? You felt his soul on those records.
In this time, we incorporate money and media, and it's split up like apartheid, where when you say "hip-hop," you think just rap records. People might have forgot about all the other elements in hip-hop. Now we're back out there again, trying to get people back to the fifth element, the knowledge. To know to respect the whole culture, especially to you radio stations that claim to be hip-hop and you're not, because if you was a hip-hop radio station, why do you just play one aspect of hip-hop and rap, which is gangsta rap?
What sets 'Some Nights' apart from anything we've ever done is the hip-hop influence. Not so much the actual sound of hip-hop, but more the vibrato and the artistry that comes with it. Right now, the artists that seem to be pushing to be the greatest artists and are trying to change the world are hip-hop artists.
The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with.
Hip-hop is the only music in the world where you can take any instrument and make it hip hop. It's anybody's music. It's what you make of it. That's for anything you do in life.
I always say to people that I left hip-hop in '97, meaning that I departed from listening to predominately hip-hop and just started really getting into records from the late '60s, early '70s. And once I made that change, I realized how much great music was made back in the day, and it started to become apparent how much we've lost in music.
Even though hip-hop started as a battle format, different artists appeared on each other's records or hung out in the same clubs, supporting each other. That was a profound influence. Also, hip-hop, to me, represents limitless possibility. Hip-hop is always evolving. People say, "Oh, it's a very commercial thing, it's too R&B." But in six months, a record is gonna come out that will completely change that.
Hip-hop is always moving. It's always looking for the next style; it's always trying to one-up the last person.
I am trying to get folks outside the hip-hop culture to understand why, despite the negatives, young people find hope and refuge in hip-hop. I'm hoping that young people immersed in the culture will work harder to capitalize on the possibilities for great social change that hip-hop represents as a national unified cultural youth movement.
Hip-hop music in general kind of revolves around singles, and I appreciate that mindset, but at the same time, I wanted to go beyond that. It's not like I was intending to make a classic record - I mean, I'm always trying to make timeless music, but I really just tried to reference the music that on a road trip you can put in and not have to skip a track.
Hip hop music and soul music have been the two main motivators for me musically. The music I make is hip hop soul, but I do make r&b music as well. I don't think I make r&b music to the point where I'm accurately categorized. There's more to what I have to offer and offer in the future. People could choose to respect it or not, but I pray that you do. As long as you get it, support it, and pay for it, it doesn't really matter.
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