A Quote by Lyor Cohen
Going to radio with a rap record prior to going to the consumer is like having no foreplay with your girlfriend.
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I knew that it's typical for a black kid to say, 'I'm just going to rap.' I was like, 'I'm going to rap, but I'm going to study, I'm going to figure out what this is and how to put it together.'
I remember when we were mixing our record and our manager was in there going, 'You guys need to sing more, so it can be on the radio.' And we were like 'What? We're never going to get played on the radio. Who cares? What are you talking about?'
To be honest, the search for a label was really weird, because some of the labels that you wouldn't expect to care about stuff like radio formats were the ones that did care. They were like, 'Yeah, we love this record, but what are we going to play on the radio?' And I was like, 'You don't have bands on the radio.'
Having had been not so well traveled as a kid, as most teenagers aren't, I always thought, "Okay I'm going to focus my energy on rap and the rap game, because that's how I'm going to be able to pay rent and pay off my school loans." But seeing the reaction with this whole gay rap situation has made me not want to play into it at all anymore and just make whatever.
People were always like, 'Oh my God, you're going to be working with your girlfriend? Are you freaking out? Is that going to, like, destroy your relationship?' I think it emboldened the relationship.
When I finish writing a rap verse. It's a lot like sex: You start off slow with ideas, like foreplay, and then you put your all into it. When you end it with the perfect thought, it's like that perfect last stroke.
Here's the tragedy of the modern record business: It's radio. If you're not on radio, nobody really is going to hear you or see you or care about you.
Sometimes I even felt like he dated me as part of his plan, like they were going to have a checklist on the application, and one of the things to tick off was going to be, "Do you have a reasonably intelligent girlfriend who shares your aspirations, and who is fully prepared to accept your limited availability?
People are not even going to have time to listen to radio in their cars because they are going to be talking on their phones or twittering, or BBM'ing. So I feel like the only time people are going to hear music is when your phone rings, so that's the whole market I'm going after.
It's like, on my solo stuff, every single person who buys the record, gets it. On the other stuff, the masses... when you have a hit on the radio, not everyone's going to get it. They are going to buy it for the hit.
MySpace is somehow more welcoming than Facebook. And Twittering, I just... Ugh. I like having radio silence. I think radio silence is an important part of any public figure's day. We haven't seen it yet, but there's going to be a generation that comes up where the new trend will be complete anonymity. It'll be cool to have never posted anything online, commented, opened a webpage or a MySpace. I think everyone in the future is going to be allowed to be obscure for 15 minutes. You'll have 15 minutes where no one is watching you, and then you'll be shoved back onto your reality show.
I have a few different managers, and one of them hit me up today and was like 'I'm going to set you up with these guys doing beats and such...' I was like cool, as long as I can do what I do. Just because kids are going like this now, I'm not going to do that because I am not 18 years old. I'm not going to rap like I'm in grade three because it's popular. I'm just not going to do that. It's not because I'm being stubborn, and I definitely not that guy that is getting older and does not understand the younger generation.
I think that 'Pinata' album is going to stand the test of time. It's going to be a moment in hip-hop, whether people know it or not. It's nothing else like that in rap. It's going to forever hold its place.
Obviously, what happened from the 'Immortalized' record was we achieved a level of success that, to be perfectly honest, was unpredecented in our career. Every track released from that record ended up going No. 1 at radio.
I want Man Repeller to feel like you're waking up in the morning, you're calling your girlfriend, you don't know what she is going to say, you don't really care what she has to say, but you know you're going to like it, and you're going to laugh and hang up the phone and feel ready to take on the day with all this new knowledge.
I won't necessarily make new music because when you make a record there are these great expectations on the side of the record company who are going to produce your record, promoters that are going to do your shows. They want you to do interviews, they want you to play shows. I mean, they want it to be a campaign.
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