El-P Quotes
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My problem is not to reinforce or destroy any ideas anyone might have about me, how I do what I do, what my intentions are, the way that I do it. My only job as far as I can see is to do the music that I want to do. All those other things are completely out of my control.
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I always wanted to do a deal with Russell Simmons, and now I've got my signature on a piece of paper with his.
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As you get bigger, your staff gets bigger, and your costs get bigger.
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I've never had a huge collection of records; I've never been a beat digga.
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I'm trying to consciously evolve myself. I have no delusions of grandeur.
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Everyone just wants to feel good, and I don't think that all music is designed to make you feel good.
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There's nothing worse than being shackled by some miniscule sort of technology you have onstage, and I think your mettle is going to get tested in those moments.
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I am making art. It's not a job that you've gotta show up to and fill in your slot. This is a dream come true. You get the opportunity to say something, to make a piece of art and hang it on the wall forever. Sometimes you're gonna have to take your time.
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At the core of everything I do, is not my ambition but my desire to make music. Somewhere along the line I stumbled onto something that was bigger, different than anything I had ever imagined, which was actually being involved with other people. I just don't live the average artist's life.
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We're fighting internal struggles, I am the cancer for my own cure.
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If you ask me what people want from me, they would probably just want me to be true to what I'm doing.
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At a young age, I really wanted to make music and make my own sort of thing. I'm sure if it wasn't music, it would have been writing, or it would have been maybe painting. I just always had the drive to try and make something with my hands and to just pull something out of myself and shape it and see it in front of me, if that makes any sense.
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Everyone just wants to feel good, and I don't think that all music is designed to make you feel good. Sometimes it's to make you feel amped, or angry, or nervous. I was listening to a lot of Public Enemy when I made the record.
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I think Trump is indicative of a larger problem. It existed way before him, it is our generation's issue that all over the world people are and have been suffering from despotic power figures who want nothing more to control than help the people they claim to represent. The difference being is a lot of people had not been paying much attention prior because it wasn't directly impacting them.
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Hip-hop is always moving. It's always looking for the next style; it's always trying to one-up the last person.
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There are two types of people, two types of performers: Performers who know how to keep a show going literally when the power is gone and performers who haven't had that much experience and will panic and freak out and don't know what to do.
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I don't think hip-hop is a dying art form. I think it's impossible for hip-hop to be a dying art form.
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The crews that are going to be self-produced are going to make the great albums, as opposed to making these mix-tapes, these compilations - "Me over this guy" It sounds good individually, but the art of the record is something that is lost. It gets to the point where it's just vocalists and producers coming in and piecing things together.
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You've gotta be an outsider a little bit to shake yourself loose from the mill, the "machine." In order to even cut the space in your life to pursue what most people literally cannot afford a moment to pursue. So, yeah. I think that not only is that the role of the artist, but it might be a requirement.
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I couldn't really be a part of high school, because I have a terrible time doing things that I don't want to do. I'm not good at it. It's not even like, I'm a rebel. I'm just bad at it, you know?
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I've been approached by major labels every single year of my existence as an artist. Since 1996.
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I think you get to a certain point in your life and where you grew up stops reminding you of when you grew up. Everything changes, everything metamorphosizes.
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There are all the offsprings of people who are influenced by punk. It sounds completely different - but it's still rock 'n' roll. When hip-hop came on the scene, it was the last legitimate creation of a new genre.
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I think that everyone who does music, and everyone who does art, or everyone who decides at a young age that they're gonna do that, is someone who feels like an outsider. The world is not really set up for that.
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That dark humor has always been a part of what I've done. It's always been somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
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I'm a fan of some of the hyphy stuff. Hyphy has been going on a lot longer than the press has been recognizing it.
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I think that every record label has its trials and tribulations, its ups and downs. The only thing you can do is hope to recognize what it is that makes you great, and to try and continue to capture it.
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You can't turn back technology and you can't turn back authoritarianism. You can't have one hand in the dirt and one hand in the crystal clear water and say that you're clean. That's just the way it is.
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If you are a good writer you use your life experience to do something different than someone who is 20-years-old can do. That is where you get your power. That is our power as a group. I am not trying to make the same music I made 10 years ago.
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I wanted people to know that I was making what I was making just on a sampler, basically.
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