Pusha T Quotes

All the Public Enemy albums, I knew what records they were sampling but was like, 'How'd they construct it like this?!'

In the past, my process would start with a sample of another song, and I'd chop it up and use that as the basis of the song that I was making.

I love sampling, and RZA loves sampling, too.

One of my favourite Donald Byrd tracks is 'Think Twice,' and I didn't want to sample it. I've always enjoyed when other people have sampled it, so I wanted to instead of making a beat with it or something like that, or freak the beat of whatever. I wanted to just recreate it in my own way, like how I heard it.

I come from the school of hip-hop where you just buy records and sample records all the time. Doing that is tough sometimes, because if you get a placement on a major record, your record could get shelved because of clearance issues.

If I sample a song, I usually make samples out of the whole album. Then I move on after that. Doesn't mean I'm going to release that whole album, but I do that.

Sampling is very important for me. It's the backbone of hip-hop.

I used to re-create the beats that I heard.

When Thug hears a song, he knows how the whole shape of the thing goes. He can nudge the whole frame to the left to make it offbeat and sound how he wants it to sound.

'I Used To Love H.E.R.,' from a production standpoint, was a brainchild of the style I developed on 'Soul By The Pound.'

If you know Down South production, Roland 808 is in almost everything.

I work with any producer that brings me a hot beat, but you don't always know if it's a sample.

Like with me, like around '97, for Christmas my parents bought me an MPC 2000 sampler and a little eight-track cassette recorder. And I started sampling records and, you know, producing hip-hop beats. And it got to the point where I realized - I innately realized that the music I liked the most was made by people that played instruments.

During the day I'll work on music. I have a sampler and a drum machine out with me and I write new songs while we're on the road.

Future's the guy, like, where, if I send him some beats while he on the road, and there's a pack of beats that he really like, if there's a new vibe or new wave, he's like, 'Man, keep feeding me more. Feed me more of this every day.'

I could probably have an idea one day and then go into the studio and really wanna write about just that idea that I have in mind. Or it can vary with just a simple beat and I just do a bunch of melodies on the track that inspire me.

I've worked with incredible producers in the past, but when me and El-P got in a room, there was no way I was going to let off his head because not only was he one of the greatest producers I heard, he was one of the illest rappers I had ever heard.

People will go through 50 beats from a producer and pick the best ones, go make a song on that beat. That's cool, but someone coming to me and hearing what I've been working on, picking out pieces of all of that, and then adding some of their own ideas is way more exciting.

If the beat feels like it don't make you move right, I scrap that and go to another track. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour to get one done.

Some machine-y music is great, but you can apply any groove to any song now - there's literally a massive drop-down menu on most programs. And that's what takes the human being out of the process.

So I was about 19 when I got my first SP-1200, and on that SP-1200, I made 'Bring The Pain' and a few other classic Wu joints.

I had a boom box with a dual cassette deck and a mic, so I used to make pause tapes. I think a lot of people started like that because it was all I had. I would just take rap records that I liked and just loop the beat by pressing pause and record and make, like, five minutes of these beats.

Bad Name' is just that head-nod, traditional loop over a breakbeat, chopped up, and it sounds like the way I do my thing.

I started making beats in high school.

From 'The Money Store,' 'I've Seen Footage' seems to run the beats from Tone Loc's 'Wild Thing' and Salt-n-Pepa's 'Push It' through a rusty meat grinder.