Because I am white, I feel like certain opportunities were thrown to me through all of the people from the white community who prey on hip-hop culture.
You've got to continue to be patient and get all your ducks in a row in order to make a success within this business. It's not an easy thing to get into. It takes years and years and years.
I've always taken it upon myself to be a pioneer or a leader, and create a different sound, not just go by what the radio is playing at the time.
It's not always about working with the hottest artist. I sometimes go for challenges although people look at me strangely like, 'Why are you doing that?!' However, with a risk sometimes comes a huge reward. It's about having the vision to be able to turn a challenge into something, and then you win the Heisman.
If people are given the right circumstances and the right track and the right melody, it's about the conviction. It's not necessarily about being a God-given virtuoso.
I'm always making tracks. I find that when you make tons of tracks, you stumble upon genius. You can't always turn the drum machine on and right away there's a hot track. Sometimes you luck out. But it can take a lot of time between thinking about the artist, listening to music for inspiration or going to clubs.
As soon as 'Still D.R.E.' starts playing, you know what it is because of the melody. Most of the world's biggest records are less chord-driven. They have that instantly recognizable sound.
Biggie was to me the guy who was the best at painting the picture and making you visualize something, Pac was the best poet, and I feel like Jay Z is all of the above. Then Rick Ross is just, every line he spits is just perfect, and he's one of my favorite MCs of all time.
Certain people, you just don't want to be around them.
I think it's just sad in this industry that sometimes the pressures of being successful make you say things that are untrue.
I would take one of 15 half-million-dollar cars I owned and go to the mall and spend that much money. Stupid, stupid stuff. It's like it didn't make a difference. They were ego investments. I would have been great with three or four cars. I didn't need a 117-foot boat.
I watched my own father, he went bankrupt and had problems with the IRS. He was living beyond his means, and I guess I was doing the same thing and not even realizing it.
I've been around a lot of greats I seen in this industry that have problems, but the comeback can be that much greater.
I would always be going from L.A. to Miami to New York, to Russia, St-Tropez. Costs about $50,000 for a domestic flight, $250,000 for overseas. Yeah, that's an expensive habit.
I'm not the guy trying to be all up in the videos and be a celebrity. I feel like I'm going to lose a certain amount of my privacy if I do that.
I drive something different every day. It's just my hobby.
I would see musicians performing at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and I knew that at the very worst I could do that.
There's certain artists who are loyal and certain ones don't really care and don't give you the opportunity to follow through with them again. I'm insulted by a lot of the artists I delivered hits to.
As a kid, I used to sit there and figure out how to play everybody's song, and through learning all those songs I learned how to put chords together, and it evolved till I could say, 'Hey, I just wrote that.'
My father didn't believe in my music. I don't blame him.
