I knew I was destined to be a rock star. I just knew it, like I've always had the power of foresight. I feel right now exactly the way I felt after I finished mixing my first solo album 'New York Groove'.
I tend to think about so many different things on a recording. I'll be trying to tune into what the drummer's doing, trying to keep everyone playing the groove and other things like making sure the piano's in a nice pocket.
Look closely, and you can see where the grooves of a record widen, indicating a sparseness that can only be a bass solo, or grow denser to accommodate a cresting density of sound.
My definition of hip hop is taking elements from many other spheres of music to make hip hop. Whether it be breakbeat, whether it be the groove and grunt of James Brown or the pickle-pop sounds of Kraftwerk or Yellow Magic Orchestra, hip hop is also part of what they call hip-house now, or trip hop, or even parts of drum n' bass.
Al and Tommy and I sharing the biggest laugh because it was predicted by everything we did in the first three or four records in my career. It was predicted in the grooves that we would be here sometime later on down the road.
'Moving Pictures' still makes me get into a groove; I love the way it feels. But I'm not nostalgic for old times. I'd love to have that hair again and be 40 pounds lighter, but it's a tradeoff.
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
But now, I think I have found a corner, a groove of what kind of stories I want to be part of and what type of characters I want to play. I have a soft corner for damaged people or those who are not supposedly quintessentially perfect but have the instincts to be protective.
Who doesn't love Tupac? Those records have such swagger to them. The groove is just incredible.
I don't dig staying in one groove.
