Every now and then there might be a beat someone turned down that I have as an unused beat. But everything that predominantly matches the artist in my 30 years of doing this, it was me walking in and sitting there with no drums, no samples, no nothing, and making a beat on the spot.
From Jay-Z to Nas to Kanye to whoever, I'm just not the type to say, 'Hey, let me get on your album.' If they want me, they're going to reach out and say, 'I need a joint from you.'
Guru was actually who A&R'd and got Lord Finesse signed because he used to listen to the demos at Wild Pitch. And he was the one who actually said, 'Yo, this Lord Finesse guy is dope.' And Stuart Fine signed him to Wild Pitch. That's how we became labelmates.
Everybody knows with rap artists, if you can't go to the hood, it's almost like you're not authentic, even if you're a dope artist that's respected.
Black men, we're known for getting into some drama with other black men, specifically black-on-black crime. We're used to the confrontational attitude.
I think the fact that Gang Starr kept getting more and more successful was the reason we never thought about our age.
DWYCK' was only intended to be a B-side of 'Take It Personal,' because we had done a record with Nice & Smooth for their album, Ain't a Damn Thing Changed, called 'Down The Line.' They were returning the favor with 'DWYCK,' being that we let them borrow the 'Manifest' instrumental.
I used to lie about my age at first because you always want to be 18, but then you start looking at it and you're 40, and the money's still coming. And you're like, 'Man, who cares about that?'
All of our other albums were consecutive year after year: 'No More Mr. Nice Guy,' 'Step in the Arena,' 'Daily Operation,' 'Hard to Earn.' After 'Hard to Earn,' a four-year gap is a lot of not having Gang Starr music, as far as an album is concerned.
I'm from the pre-Pro Tools era where you had to meet up with the artist and go over things if you wanted to record a track.
Travis Scott's dad was one of my OGs when I was a kid in Texas. Obviously Travis was nonexistent yet because his father wasn't even married back then.
I don't usually collab with producers, because I don't need to. I never have, because I don't want to break my style of how I do things.
Guru's family gave me a piece of his ashes. I saw the gold box of ashes that his father had when we had the memorial service. He had a nice giant gold box that had his name on it. It was really nice. I know all the family members had ashes that they all spread and took on their own. So I said lemme ask is it cool if I have some.