I love the grind. Gucci taught me to never stop working.
Mike Will Made It
No teacher ever skipped the student process... if you want to be a leader, you have to be a follower first.
I've just got to keep a balanced head and stay focused.
If I tell you purple look good on you, and you ain't never wore purple, your favorite colors are red and green, and you're like, No man, these my colors. You won't know purple is your color until you try it on.
It's like I have three different brains.
Jimmy Iovine, he pretty much started off as an engineer and a producer, and then he started up a label. Then he built his label to have big artists like Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. Then he started up a headphone company and made it a billion dollar business. He's a genius to me.
I'm looking at EarDrummers like a boutique label, like an Interscope or a Def Jam.
I have a 200-song catalogue in the streets and I never got any money off that.
When people question me about whether something is hip-hop, I ask them, 'Does it sound hard? Does it hit home? Is it raw and real?' If it is, I did my job. And you can call it whatever you want.
Jimmy Iovine has been telling me since 2012 that I needed to start my own label with my own artists. This was when he first met me and 'Bandz a Make Her Dance' was first taking off.
I don't put myself in any box or say that I can't work on any kind of music. I'm not just a producer that only makes urban music.
I want to work with anybody original.
Me and Future, we did 'Dirty Sprite,' 'Ain't No Way Around It,' 'Turn on the Lights.' Every time we record, we're setting bars.
2 Chainz and I have a history. It's always an honor and pleasure working with him, because it seems like everything we do is dope. We just have that organic chemistry.
I just want to change the game.
I like everything rare - cars, shoes, clothes.
I wouldn't say money can buy happiness. Happiness starts with yourself. Money can buy a smile, though.
You wanna champion someone from your city and it blows it up.
I'm just trying to follow the footsteps of God. I don't question him. Just keep moving. He never fails. He always amazes me. It's like, damn, the sky isn't the limit.
That's what music is all about, vibes. That's what makes people react and relate to a song, what makes it soulful.
I do it all, man. I produce, I do my own wardrobe and my own ironing, too!
When I do music I don't think about urban music, pop or country, I just think about a good song.
I'm a producer, not just a beatmaker but a producer.
A Red camera is the best. When I started shooting videos, I had to pay ten thousand dollars just to rent one. I was like, 'I do all these music videos, and I still don't own a Red camera?' So I spent about a hundred thousand dollars to buy one. My own bread. Boom!
I don't spend a bunch of money on jewelry or sunglasses, because I lose them a lot.
We Can't Stop' - everyone said that it wasn't going to work on pop radio, because it didn't have an EDM-type beat. But it went to No. 2 on Billboard and No. 1 on iTunes.
I'm always that dude that's looking for the next thing.
For 'Black Beatles' to be so true to us and our sound - we weren't chasing a sound - it solidifies that the world is ready for us and what we have to come.
I was able to bring Gucci and Rae Sremmurd on a track together. It was crazy because it seemed like it was destined to be.
Putting together a hit record is like putting together a puzzle.
When I was still at Interscope, I told them about Rae Sremmurd and we were talking about signing them. I was like, 'This is the hood Backstreet Boys, the black *NSYNC. This is the most ratchet pop is gonna get and this is the most pop hip-hop is gonna get.'
Me and Miley just clicked. She has good ideas. She's real creative.
We Can't Stop' has so many different vibes to it. She sounds country; the beat has these live, knocking drums; and then it has these pop melodies. It's a feel-good record.
We Can't Stop' was the first song we did. We didn't try to reach and be too 'hood:' It's hip-hop-influenced, but Miley's a pop singer, and she's going to have country in there.
With 'HUMBLE.,' I knew that beat was going to capture a moment. It just felt real urgent.
People told me that Miley's '23' wasn't hip-hop. Let me tell you, she went in and owned that track.
A lot of times, older people don't get the new generation.
With rapping, that's just another form of expressing your music. Whether you're going to rap, you're going to sing, it's whatever you want.
As far as rapping goes, as long as you are telling the truth and you have a good flow, then you win.
Pharrell is a legend.
It's important to show the new generation that soundtracks can be just as exciting as traditional albums if put in the hands of the right curator.
I wanted to find raw talent and help build it from scratch. I wanted to build from rags to riches. That's the way Ear Drummers did it. We took over the music industry from my mom's basement. That's why my first album is going to be called 'Made It Out the Basement.'
You can scroll through my iTunes and I've got everything. I've got Ace Hood, Alt-J, Annie Lennox, Arctic Monkeys, Beanie Sigel, the Beatles, Beth Hart, Big Sean, Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, Chief Keef, Coldplay, the Flaming Lips, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, OutKast, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Gabriel, the Smiths, and the list goes on from there.
God has blessed me with something. One day, I do see myself being like Jimmy Iovine. I'm trying to build an empire.
Juicy J was always one of my favorites. For one, he was a producer and I just used to love how he came on his verses every time.
Drake is damn near the best with melodies.
I used to be with Gucci every day. School nights, I was with Gucci going to all the different clubs, going to his video shoots. Just moving around with him is how I met a lot of different artists like 2 Chainz and Shawty Lo and other people I work with now.
I'm just expanding my sound and making it bigger.
Whoever has a next-level ear needs to be an Eardrummer.
I feel like when I came in the game, I was more focused on like, 'yo how many times can I get on the radio?'
