Musicians From The United States

"There's a lot of positive stuff to say about him... Why can't I think of any now? (laughs) Oh, here's something positive: Big Jim's best trait of character was that he has always been himself... which was his worst trait of character at the same time."

"Recently, a girl chained herself to me with hand-cuffs after a gig, just because I refused to talk to her. I politely declined, though. I am a well-bred boy. I don't want to be too specific, but... it got pretty ugly."

"Despite the aural onslaught, King (For A Day) is not an assault I think it's us being us, more than anything. I think we finally had the resources to be us on this record."

"Revenge is good. I think revenge is healthy too, and if you can use music in that way, a sort of therapeutic way for yourself, it can't do any harm. So if King (For A Day...Fool For A Lifetime) is angry in any way, it's angry in a random, chaotic, healthy way. Like the guy who goes into a building, shoots a bunch of holes in the wall and then leaves. He didn't kill anybody."

"We just wanna be the happy bums that we are. That's all."

"Producers like Organized Noize mix samples and live instruments really well, but for me, it almost feels like a cop-out, because I'm a collage artist. It's like, 'Damn, if only I could find this one part. Well, maybe if I just had somebody paint it, and then I'll put it out.' That almost feels like cheating. Lots of times, I have trouble finding bass lines, because it's not very often on a record that there are good open bass lines. Sometimes I wish I could just have somebody come in and do what I want him to do on a bass line. It would be so easy. But what I do just keeps things much more challenging, I guess."

"Cutting and pasting is the essence of what hip-hop culture is all about for me. It's about drawing from what's around you, and subverting it and decontextualizing it."

"Being a DJ, I take the art of digging seriously...it has almost a karmic element of, 'I was meant to find this on top.' or, 'I was meant to pull this out because it works so well with this.' So it has a lot of meaning for me personally."

"I never practiced a fretless ever, because the strings eat the neck up. So I would only play it on gigs."

"I took the frets out of my bass after I was getting into jazz a lot and I wanted to have that upright sound."

"I was playing drums, and I had broken my wrist very bad playing football, and the bass player in the band... he wanted to split. So I just went to the bass; I went from Drums over to Bass. That was it. I was playing the bass within a week."

"I had an upright — it took me years and years to get enough bread to get it... I'm from Florida, so one morning I woke up, go in the corner and the bass is in a hundred pieces, cause the humidity is so bad, I mean, the upright just blew up. I said forget it, man, I can't afford this any more. So I went out, got a knife and took all the frets out of my Fender. That was it."

"Give me a gig!"

"A fiery and muscular player, Jaco Pastorius, who passed away in 1987 at the age of 35, remains one of the most influential electric bassists in jazz. His 1975 self-titled debut album is hailed by some as the best jazz bass album ever; it should be required listening for any aspiring bass player, especially his interpretation of Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee," or his harmonic work on "Continuum" and "Portrait of Tracy." Pastorius used to say he was the greatest bass player in the world, and dude could back it up with his virtuosic abilities."

"Saying Pastorius is the greatest jazz-based bassist of all time would not be a stretch. Unfortunately, Pastorius' off-stage demons seemed to get in the way of sustaining that greatness. In addition to his drug addiction, Pastorius dealt with bipolar disorder and harbored a nasty temper. Pastorius, who collaborated with the likes of Joni Mitchell and Ian Hunter, died in 1987 at 35 due to injuries suffered in a bar fight, ending a celebrated musical career where his innovative funk harmonies on the electric bass are still an influence on bassists to this day."

"All the greats respected him the most. ... Common actually stayed with him in his last days -- they both stayed in L.A. together -- and we would go over there when we were working on the album. And I remember him giving me drums. It was such an honor for him to actually give me drums because I'd actually stolen so many drums off of his beat CDs. (laughs) ... Let's also talk about how many rappers bit his style. He even inspired a lot of rappers. The way he would space his words on the beat. The patterns he would get... All that. Whenever people do that, that's Jay Dee all day long. ~ Kanye West, Rapper and Producer, from an interview with Semtex on BBC Radio, February 18th, 2006"

""That’s how me and Dilla always worked, we had a crazy chemistry. We would just sit there cracking jokes, you know, smoking, he got the headphones on. He’d come up with a beat in like 10 minutes, take the headphones off, the beat’s banging through the speakers. Load it up, make sure the mic’s on, show me where to press play, where to stop at, he’d press record and go upstairs, I’d lay the verse, he’d come back down like done and done. Load the next one up, he’d talk on the phone, I’d lay another song. That’s just how we worked." ~ Phat Kat (on recording the Dedication to the Suckers EP in one night)"

"One time we were in the studio and didn't have a drum machine, and he went inside the booth and played the drums on his body. He knew how to EQ it right and everything, like, "Okay, he just made a song using his body." [laughs] It was serious. ~ James Poyser (from the Ruff Draft re-issue liner notes)."

"Dilla was a good cat. He looked out for me, showing me how to work the SP1200, the (MPC) 3000, he used to set me up in his basement, and leave me there all night, while he went out the bar or to mess with some chicks. He was real open-hearted, but he could get on some wild shit. We fell out for a minute, but we mended it and it was all good. He just wanted people to hear the music, but I seen him snap off on cats, he was good people though. He just wanted to make music and do his thing. ~ DJ House Shoes"

"Peter Rosenberg: How do you rank Dilla [out of the] all time producers?"

"I knew him for a good three or four years before I knew he was sick! I was blown back by that, man. I never knew he was sick – he always kinda hid it from me. His music will always be alive and well, and I will make sure to that. He was one of the greatest, man. He was the greatest to ever do it, for the new cats. And for his mother to tell me that I was his favorite producer – I was like ‘Wow, that’s dope, man’. He really took it there. He kinda broadened me and opened my eyes again, and got me standing up straight on my toes, ‘cos that dude was really serious with it. ~ Pete Rock"

"Q-Tip comes in the room and says, "I want you to hear something". I'm hella excited 'cause either it's a new Tribe song or it's a beat for me. He tells the kid to put the tape in. He does and I hear a ghostly piano loop that has some shakers in it. Too Salsa for me. That was "Runnin'"! He plays another joint and I go crazy over it. That was "The Jam". He explains to me that the noise I keep flippin' over [is] someone holding the repeat button on the SP when its in 1/32! He played another joint, wasn't my speed. I didn't like the Beastie Boy sample at the top. That was "Drop!" The next joint played and only played for 15 seconds. I wanted that one. He explained that it was just an interlude though. I still wanted it. The next joint was hard, organ sounding joint. Sounds like something a west coast artist would take... w:Ice Cube maybe. That was "Gotta Kick Something That Means Something"! I took three tracks and told Tip that I wanted to add more tracks to the album. He said cool! Yes!!! I got three tracks from Tip!!! Tip looks at me and says, "I didn't make em...he did." I look at the kid and speak to him and he says "What Up Doe?" "What up, kid? What's your name?" "Jay Dee.""

"When I found out Dilla passed, I was in Australia. I did not want to do the show anymore, my mind was heavy. Dilla existed in all of us and I felt a piece of myself was missing. How could I give them my all? But then I thought about Jay on stage in a wheelchair. I HAD to perform. The musicians and the true listeners already knew. I have to spread his legacy to the world, forever. The sounds from The Roots, myself, Mos Def, A Tribe Called Quest, Common, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, and of course the slum [Ed. note, Slum Village.] owe to his legacy. Now we are Jay Dee. Rest in peace, Dilla, we love you. ~ Talib Kweli, in one of his blog entries on http://www.talibkweliblog.com"

"I can't begin to explain the influence his mind and ear has had on my band, myself, and the careers of so many other artists. The most humble, modest, worthy and gifted beatmaker I've known...and definitely the best producer on a mic. ~ Black Thought, MC from The Roots"

"If you were to secretly ask the most praised hip-hop producers, if given a top three, who they fear the most, Dilla’s name would chart on everyone’s list, hands down. ~ ?uestlove, drummer from The Roots"

"Per Te (lyrics by Josh Groban)"

"No matter what your age and no matter where you come from, everyone can change the world in some way, whether it's being a mentor to someone younger than you or someone that doesn't have as much experience as you. If you're passionate enough, you can do whatever you want and definitely change the world."

"I was the hopeless romantic. I had so many crushes. But not on the real obvious girls. I was into the quirky ones. I was so shy, though."

"I have to work hard to not look like a nerd all the time. My friends are the only people I know that don't care about my image. I need to have people who treat me just as Josh, not as Josh the singer."

"I don't have a social life right now. I try to -- it's something that I miss -- but David Foster told me: 'The golden microphone is in front of your mouth. You have to sing into it or it will get passed onto someone else.' It's very lonely, what I'm doing. Even though you have a lot of people around you, they're not experiencing it first-hand. It's hard to name more than five close friends. As much as people want to understand, it's hard when you don't see someone for five months at a time, and they're like, 'C'mon, make time.' But I don't have time. My days are gone. There are a lot of firsts for me. And I'm not going to toss it off. It would be silly to say, 'No, I'd rather go see a movie.' I know there will be time for that later."

"The shower is my time to open up my operatic chops, because of the enormous echo. You sound five times as big in the shower, so I break into some "Nessun Dorma" [from Puccini's Turandot] or Pearl Jam. You've got to go big when you're in the shower. There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva."

"My life is an unfinished product, but instead of just saying, 'How do I top what I've accomplished,' I decided I wanted to move forward, express my growth and take a big step into the next chapter.""

"It's a nice feeling. I was not like the popular guy in high school. This is revenge for all the bullies in high school [laughter]. It's a great feeling. Maybe women sometimes are more open to romantic music.""

"I try to have a real close connection with my fans. That's extremely important. They are the ones that have been there from the beginning and proved everyone else wrong.""

"I can only say so much about how I feel. Music is what I always turned to when I was feeling a certain way. It's been my reason for everything.""

"I just have to feel it first. It can't be cerebral at all. I'm big on lyrics, a big lyric person, especially the kind of singing I do. It's hard to sound not cheesy sometimes with the voice I have with English songs.""

"It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.' ""

"I wanted to experiment with that live energy, to push myself a little. It's very much about having intimacy with the music. I love theater - and I love playing in these old theaters. It's not a Vegas stage show. It's very much just me and the music and a five-piece band and a 20-piece string section from each city."

"When I make an album I take a lot of risks. I ignore the trends of the moment and one of the things I have to think of when making an album like this is the honesty of it. To connect. It goes against the grain. It's nice to know I can go against the grain."

"I'm not crossing over from anything. I think of it as pop music with different influences. "When I walk in the music store, [my] album is under classical/pop/easy listening. It's hard to say what genre it is. It's genreless. I try not to define what it is. I let the audience define it. Because for me, it's just me."

"First and foremost, I'd like to continue taking risks with my music. Everything I've done so far has been a gut reaction, honest and real. And that's who I am. That's what I want my music to always be -- honest and real.""

"I've been fascinated by music for as long as I can remember. I was the kid on the playground in the third grade who would tell other kids about Paul Simon or Depeche Mode.""

"Las Vegas Sun, 08/13/04"

"I hoped to sell 50,000 records. My main goals were to sing my heart out, to challenge myself vocally, to find beautiful music that has great stories and to express what I love about the musicality of different languages. And if 10 people bought it, I'd be thrilled that 10 people listened to it. And if it was 10 million, I'd be thrilled that 10 million people listened to it. This is just beyond any dream that I could have possibly had.""

"You're Still You (lyrics by Linda Thompson)"

"I'm going, going, back, back, to Cali, Cali."

"Representing the best of East Coast rap, Christopher Wallace, otherwise known as The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, is one of the most influential and acclaimed rappers in history. The New York based rapper has written some of the genre’s most well-respected albums and singles such as “Juicy,” “Big Poppa” and “Mo Money Mo Problems” among others. Wallace’s unique beats and rap flow often undermined the violent lyrical themes he showcased in his songwriting, though it was seen as a new and unprecedented approach to the gangsta rap genre at the time."

"I kind of realized how powerful Tupac and I was (you know what I'm saying?) because Pac is a strong dude, I know dude. (You know what I'm saying?) We two ind"

"I only got beef with those that violate me; I shall annihilate thee."

"Forget the telly, we just go to the crib, watch a movie in the Jacuzzi and smoke Ls while you do me."