Ad-Rock Quotes

The desire to hit a big home run is dominating the music business.

If I make a song, and it's my song, like 'Lean On,' we're going to make money off the synchs, the Spotify, and we get to headline festivals on it. That's the model I want to explore.

I've never sold a lot of records.

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

Even though the popularity and the fanbase is much much greater, and more people have heard about me through things like the Grammys and the Ivors and touring and word of mouth, it doesn't reflect in the sales of the record and doesn't go into my pocket.

In whichever way my music can get out there, I'm just like, 'Sure.' It's also through the TV synch licenses that I've been surviving. I don't really make money through record sales. I used to be really picky: 'No, I don't want it to be the song of a commercial,' but nowadays it's what you need to do to get the song out as much as you can.

My records don't go platinum or gold. I think they go cedar.

I just want to keep saturating the market and radio with as many hit records as I can.

I want to sell music. That's all I'm interested in selling.

If I had to live on record sales, I'd be pushing up the daisies.

What my whole object was is not to really sell records. I was trying to sell songs.

I just wanted to have my own dynasty. I wanted my own Cash Money or Roc-A-Fella. Outside of that, I also wanted my own media company.

Anything can wait for a hit record. That, after all, is what everyone wants at the end of the day.

That's my dream job, to be able to mail songs out to people who want to hear them. Paste my face on them and not travel all over the world trying to sell them.

Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.

I have had the good fortune to experience both the limelight and the traffic light as a musician. I did my first recording on my own and it was available at concerts. The second to seventh were released on small and then large labels. My eighth to 14th were done under my own steam once again, but with the benefit of the Internet.

I am in a business that's built on record sales and reputation and how your single is doing and where your song is on iTunes. But the kind of music that I do comes from my beliefs.

I'm not trying to sound pretentious, but we did sell 12 million records on the first album, so we did get paid a little bit.

I want to sell out arenas and make an album and work with some of the best artists in the world.

I don't think piracy is going to kill the music industry. But digital technology and the ability to download will change the packaging from CDs to a single-based business.

I feel like I'd like to continue putting out records and start putting them out more rapidly than I have until now and for me if I can keep selling the records to the fans that already like me that's fine.

As a person, I've been in the business since 1969, and I never remember getting an honest count based upon how many records been sold for Burning Spear.

It's a small percentile of people who see one dime out of the music business.

The record company's worst fear is that you'll fall in love or get rich.

I wrote and produced millions and millions of selling records, so my publishing company alone was worth millions of dollars. I didn't have to work anymore in life because when the rappers started sampling... I'm the most sampled artist in history.