Quotes from Adrian Younge

I love sampling, and RZA loves sampling, too.

It's the ownership of what's off that's the beauty in art. Its not about being exactly perfect.

I try to find a vocalist that I don't have to make better. I try to find a vocalist that can make me better, and in turn, I can make them better so that we are, as a team, making ourselves better. I like the vocalist to challenge me. I love to challenge a vocalist.

Cee Lo - to me, his voice is classic; I've personally said to him before, 'For me, your voice is as special as a Michael Jackson vocal,' because of what he can do, his range. I said that to him, and I mean that.

I basically wake up at five in the morning and grab coffee and just get to the studio. And I have a list of things I need to get done every day. Sometimes it's just mixing, sometimes it's actually writing, sometimes it's writing, recording, and mixing. It all depends on what is necessary that day.

When Curtis Mayfield made 'Super Fly,' he used the lyric to make a statement.

Change the sound. Make people rethink what they're doing. That's what I really wanna do.

It's important to the world to see superheroes that are spread across our demographic.

I always compare myself to what I did last, so I've got to try and beat what I did last. I'm always upping my own bar.

I have a J.D., but I'm not a practicing attorney as far as entertainment law goes.

To me, recording with live instruments and tape takes things back to an older sound that I like but that's still fresh.

People don't realize how much it means to your music to record on tape, whether it be for new music or old music. People don't realize how much or how imperative it is to use actual hardware when making drums because those are actual percussion samplers. They're hardware instruments that are made to have the drum hit.

I'm the black dude that loves old black culture. I also love old white culture. I just love history, but I'm the guy that wants to bring things back and push them forward.

I've always been a big fan of Kendrick's, but it's different when you hear him on your own production.

My music sounds different because the techniques are archaic, seeing as most people only record digitally.

I was really raised on hip-hop, and hip-hop introduced me basically to all the music I listen to now.

People like RZA and DJ Premier are really on the balcony to scope my musical theories. They also help me focus on making sure I make money, making sure I get the notoriety I should, just regular stuff that friends do when you're in the business. And to call them friends is amazing.

When you get older, you try to get what you wanted as a kid. Maybe you wanted an arcade in your house or Q-Tip rapping on your beats.

I'd never record digitally. It's not because its' a horrible way to record, it's just not the best way to record my music, because my music is rawer, darker and a little more nostalgic.

A lot of people record on a laptop and use plug-ins, which might be OK for the kind of music that they're doing. But for the kind of music that I'm doing, that just doesn't work. I can't cut corners; everything has to be organic.

I started buying ill, obscure records, and then I saw Portishead and Air live, and my mouth was on the ground.

Like with me, like around '97, for Christmas my parents bought me an MPC 2000 sampler and a little eight-track cassette recorder. And I started sampling records and, you know, producing hip-hop beats. And it got to the point where I realized - I innately realized that the music I liked the most was made by people that played instruments.

I always say to people that I left hip-hop in '97, meaning that I departed from listening to predominately hip-hop and just started really getting into records from the late '60s, early '70s. And once I made that change, I realized how much great music was made back in the day, and it started to become apparent how much we've lost in music.

We love high-end art, but when you're looking at high-end art in music, a lot of the time, it's appreciated academically, but you can't feel it as much.