How can you build a relationship when you're just sending out beats? Most people will come in and play their beats, but I like to make mine on the spot.
I feel like I've gotten myself comfortable making beats in front of people, so like, if I'm in a big room of people, I'm not like, nervous. I wanna be able to make beats on the spot.
Sometimes I go in and try to write beats, but I just trash 'em, and then the next time I go in, I'll make like six beats - six legit, nice beats. I'm really particular with how it needs to sound.
I was joked by a lot of older musicians because I was playing saxophone over trap beats or future bounce beats, and it just wasn't what you do. They were just like play some John Coltrane and get in the corner. But that's just not how I work.
In '96, I was in a very specific place with my own music - I was only listening to beats. You would come to my house, and I would just play beats all day.
Different identity groups hold specific levels of power over others when their battles play out in the media. To wit: Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.
I started off making beats when I was like 12. Then when I linked with people who make beats full time, I was like, 'Bet, now I can focus on writing and singing.'
A lot of young producers will stay at home and make beats all day but making beats is only about 20 percent of the job. The other 80 percent is networking; that's what I feel like a lot of people are lacking.
Before anything, I wanted to be a rapper. I used to make beats and I would start singing to layer my beats and that's kind of how I realized I could sing.
I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
I made my entire first tape using Beats headphones - the studio headphones and halfway through the second one, because I finally started making a home studio. But I record and make all my beats with the Beats headphones.
When I was first introduced to the music business, I learned how to make beats. All my friends rapped, but nobody made beats. So since I didn't do either at the time, I thought it would make more sense and I would be more valuable to the team as the in house producer.
Artists are controlled by the life that beats in them, like the ocean beats on the shore.
Genetics and beats? I feel like the drumbeat is a natural thing. Our heartbeat moves at a certain BPM. The drumbeat, being the first instrument, the platform for us, being that we all kind of come from that - it's all beats.
I never made beats to make beats; I only made them when there was a record to make them for. That's one of the things that has changed in hip-hop that's made me like it less. It feels much more like it's a producer-driven medium, where there are all these tracks that are completely interchangeable.
The simplest beats, on what rock music or any music has been formed on, can be the toughest beats to execute and perform, because it's really easy to not respect a simple 4/4 beat, because people always want to play fast.
A lot of people have been sending me beats, I've just been getting it in.