A Quote by Madlib

Sometimes I will slow down the beat for one bar on purpose, just to see if the rapper can adapt his flow and stay on beat. — © Madlib
Sometimes I will slow down the beat for one bar on purpose, just to see if the rapper can adapt his flow and stay on beat.
Usually I start with a beat, I start making a beat, and my producer side is making the beat. And on a good day, my rapper side will jump in and start the writing process - maybe come up with a hook or start a verse. Sometimes it just happens like that. A song like 'Lights Please' happens like that.
I don't like pre-written raps; I think it makes the song better if you listen to the beat first. In a sense, you have to make a marriage with the beat. I ride the beat, hear the flow of the drums, get the melody of my flow, and then from that point, it's a process of what I want to say.
The bartenders are the regular band of Jack, and the heavenly drummer who looks up to the sky with blue eyes, with a beard, is wailing beer-caps of bottles and jamming on the cash register and everything is going to the beat - It's the beat generation, its béat, it's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, it's being beat and down in the world and like oldtime lowdown.
When schools truly become centers of the community, where you have extraordinary teachers, the best teachers, the best principals, great nonprofit partners coming in during the non-school hours to support and do enrichment activities, social services, then those students will beat the odds, will beat poverty, will beat violence in the community, will beat sometimes dysfunctional families, and be productive citizens long term. They will go to college.
My best writing is not outside of the beat. I'm 99 percent influenced by the beat first, and then the words just flow.
If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.
I just hear a beat and start mumbling words. I just hear sounds and rhythms, and it just kind of comes intuitively. Formatting a song, figuring out a flow, how I respond to the beat.
When you're a rapper, just a rapper, you have to kind of settle for whatever comes your way - if a beat is hot, you wanna rap on it, period.
Sometimes I start with the beat. Sometimes I can write something down and it takes me a while to figure out how I want to say it or the beat I want to say it to. I definitely like to live the experiences that I cover.
I need someone to be like, 'I can beat Bert in a marathon.' And then my Mickey Mantle genes will kick in and I'll start going, 'No you can't. You can't beat me, because I'll beat myself.'
Every now and then there might be a beat someone turned down that I have as an unused beat. But everything that predominantly matches the artist in my 30 years of doing this, it was me walking in and sitting there with no drums, no samples, no nothing, and making a beat on the spot.
All I really want is a beat from Kanye West. I've met him, and I think he's real cool with us. If I get that beat, I'm going to rap the best verse I ever dropped - even if it's his worst beat.
I love that mentality: 'Hey - you know what? - you may beat us, but by God we're going to beat the hell out of you.' I'd rather go down that way, with people that will go down swinging than, 'OK, let's accept losing.'
This time last year I would have said Federer would beat Sampras's record. Now I'm not so sure. His aura has gone. He's not as dominant as he was, and since I beat him in Australia he's looked frustrated. Players are beginning to challenge him now, especially myself and Rafa. He's got 12 Grand Slams to his name and maybe he will beat Sampras, but now I'm here it will be tough for him.
Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can't stay down. We can't allow life to beat us down. Everything happens for a reason, and it builds character in us, and it tells us what we are about and how strong we really are when we didn't think we could be that strong.
I don't need to beat Faber, because his ego will always beat him. He's got excuses for every loss he's ever had.
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