The turntable is now an instrument at the Smithsonian.
I grew up around electronic instruments. To me, the turntable is an electronic device. At the same time, I had access to drum machines and keyboards through my uncle; then track recorders into computers. At an early age, I was messing with computers more than most hip-hop musicians.
A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.
I grew up in East Germany, and we were short on technology. So my father was really proud to be the owner of a turntable.
If the music in a groove fits with what you're playing, then play it; if not, then you can play it backwards. If that doesn't work, you try it at a different speed. If it really doesn't work you just break it. The whole ritual to put a record on a turntable just to listen to it, I don't do that too often.
For my birthday this year, my girlfriends - who knew I'd just inherited my dad's turntable - gave me a carton of albums like 'Blue Kentucky Girl,' by Emmylou Harris, and 'Off the Wall,' by Michael Jackson. It's all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you can't have a music collection without Prince's 'Purple Rain' - it just can't be done!
It's glorious to be able to go onto the Internet and hear any kind of music anywhere, from anywhere, and get it instantly. But there's also something glorious about having a record with a sleeve and looking at the artwork, putting it on the turntable and playing it, there's still something romantic to me about that.
You're successful if you can get one person to pick it up and put it on the turntable and go, Wow, thanks for writing that!
It's cool to play the guitar, but to me it's even cooler to scratch a guitar backward and forward, to manipulate it with a turntable. Guitars can't do that themselves.
I would always have turntable elements in my records even if it was just one scratch.
