A Quote by Madlib

My pops had me at the studio since I was born. That's why I got into music. He would let me go up on the controls and mess with stuff. — © Madlib
My pops had me at the studio since I was born. That's why I got into music. He would let me go up on the controls and mess with stuff.
If you end up spending more time in the studio than you do on the road, that's not a good balance for me. Because I think when you're in the studio, you need to come off the road and go in the studio and that's when you're applying your best. That's when you've got the best attitude, best energy, all that stuff.
I realised that music controls me more than I control music. I had to write songs that were convincing me that things would get better.
If I just got up in the morning and had no place to go and was retired or something, I would be sitting there and be thinking, "Gee, what is the purpose of life? Why are we all finite? Why do we get old and die? Is there nothing out there? Why is it so tragic? Why do our loved ones perish? Why do we generate?" Who wants to think about that stuff?
People around me are always an inspiration due to their love of the music and they help me to generate ideas for music. But it's really the passion and drive I have for my music that keeps me connected. I recorded my first song in the studio at 8 years old and I've taken it seriously since then. Making music is fun to me so I aim to translate those feelings into the music.
I had an apartment and I had a neighbor, and whenever he would knock on my wall I knew he wanted me to turn my music down and that made me angry 'cause I like loud music... so when he knocked on the wall, I'd mess with his head. I'd say Go around I cannot open the wall I dunno if you have a door on your side but over here there's nothin'. It's just flat.
I was young, but to me that was underground music. I had never heard anything like Venom or any of that stuff growing up in Louisville. That was sort of the only weird records I could find. All that stuff would be in the import section. And sometimes there would be some sort of goth type of stuff. But that was the stuff I was attracted to.
My pops put me on to Jay-Z and Kanye, and my discoveries would be like Future and Kendrick Lamar. I turned my pops on to Kendrick, Young Thug. I feel my mom made me play the Isley Brothers and real, real old music.
My father had always called me Sam since the day I was born. He rarely ever called me Tiger. I would ask him, 'Why don't you ever call me Tiger?' He says, 'Well, you look more like a Sam.
I got off on the fact that a guy would be so into me from the get-go without really knowing me. That's probably why I had so many bad relationships.
That's really what was wonderful for me growing up, since I got to know so many of the songwriters who liked me and thought I had talent. They would then tell me how to read a lyric and sing a song, and challenge me to try and find a different end to a song.
It wasn't until 9th grade that I got into music. This guy in school heard me singing around the hallway to girls and stuff. The girls liked it. One day, he was like, 'Come to my crib. I got a studio. Come and record a hook for me.' I recorded the hook on the 'Lovers & Friends' beat - Usher.
I had a dream of music and art and the big city in which I would get lost, where no one would know me and I wouldn't know anyone, where I would work at some ordinary job, and if one day I got up in the morning and decided I wasn't going to go to work anymore, no one would ask questions.
My father was one of the first Tae Kwon Do Masters to come to the states in the '60s. He had one of the first all-African-American fighting teams, and I was basically raised in a karate studio since I was 3. It's part of my blood, competing, and all that stuff was responsible for a lot of me just growing up.
I'm a natural born show off. I love performing, and at school we had a really good music scene and an even better drama scene. When I got to university, I played in bands and did sketch stuff and it was always about coming up with material, which is why I never really practised and have no chops!! When I left uni, I carried on playing and trying out at stand-up.
I've got to sing for Pops; I've got to keep my father's legacy alive because he started all of this. So I started calling people, and nobody would give me a chance, but I didn't let that stop me. I took money out the bank and I started making me a record, and I did it in this guy's basement.
When I started music, I started out in Puerto Rico with classical music. But what really made me want to be a musician was jazz, and because I didn't grow up with jazz, I had to learn it from a very basic level. I had to go into the history and learn everything about the development of the music, all the players and all that stuff.
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