Chuck D Quotes

When some artistes give a hit song, they keep repeating themselves in the same genre. I always try to create something new.

The goal is never be a copycat of ourselves. It's more along the lines of taking risks in our music.

We wanted to offer something new to our audience. I hate it when bands stop taking chances.

I'm proud that with 'Bright Eyes' we've always experimented and tried to make a different record every time out.

To keep creating something with this type of music, you have to take it out of the box.

As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.

Everybody wants you to do this thing that you've always been doing forever. That's what they want: they want Martin Scorsese to make the same film two hundred times rather than trying to be something different.

I think most producers and MCs are constantly in this competition, but it's usually with yourself. It's usually wanting to be innovative: wanting to catch yourself when you're doing the same thing or throwing out the same art you've already done.

The only intention I've ever had creatively, as a musician, is to be as different from myself as possible.

I've never been one to just play safe music and think that's all there is to it.

I always make a point to make my records different. Let's say I have a record that's influenced by hip-hop in an abstract way; for the next record, I'd try not to do that. They are all connected in a personal way but it's important not to repeat myself, because then I can always learn something about myself through my work.

I don't like to write the same song twice.

I come from an art-school background, and I still feel that in my music, it's about exploration and challenging myself, about putting myself in a place that's frightening because I haven't been there before.

I don't ever try to make a song better than my last song. I just try to make it different from my last one.

I'm forever learning and that's why I'm always able to create new styles and new dimensions of hip-hop.

I'm so happy people are seeing the eclectic side of me. I'm really honored to be able to push my voice into different sounds. Otherwise it all gets a bit samey same.

A lot of songs are derivative of each other. Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.

What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.

I think you can't repeat beats. If you're doing something in one book, you can't do the exact same thing in another book.

Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on.

What happened with reggaeton is that many artists kept recycling the same sound. But there are a lot of reggaeton artists that are still in their prime - like Daddy Yankee - because they've chosen to continue growing, to offer people more than just reggaeton. That's where I learned to always be able to try something new and not be afraid.

I've learned that you can do something great, but you have to continue reinventing yourself as an artist. So by the time someone else is copying your style, you have something else to offer your audience.

I'm not interested in re-creating the same blues I love so much. I'm interested in pushing boundaries.

I think it's really important to show new styles of song and music. I think that's what people want to see and hear from me.

I'm trying to do different music, and I'm trying to be out of the box.