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.
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.
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?'
I feel like Rae Sremmurd is just a whole new sound culturally. People don't understand, but they learn to understand. The melody choice is different and everything.
I love being in the studio.
I did 'We Can't Stop' for Rihanna, but it never worked. Every time I would play 'We Can't Stop' I was like 'this is the new 'Party in the U.S.A.'' I was like OK if I keep saying this is the new 'Party in the U.S.A.,' why don't I go to the girl who did 'Party in the U.S.A.?'
In 2011, a lot of people didn't even know I did 'Tupac Back.'
2012, I feel like I was still grinding. It was a good year for me, but that was my year breaking down the barriers. It was like my introduction.
I like making dope music.
I wanted 'Formation' to be a woman empowerment song, but Beyonce made it into a culture empowerment song.
I really like coming across all types of different music, and hearing new things.
I want to work with anybody original.
If you put your time and energy into developing creatively, that's where you'll go.
Once you start getting money, it relieves your stress of worrying about how you're going to pay your next bill. It's more like another stress of how many bills you have to pay.
I like blessing others around me. When you work hard, it's just dope to give back to the people around you.
