DJ Premier Quotes

People don't understand what music really is. I've been a musician since I was 6 years old. I got my first piano, was playing recitals at 8, 10 I picked up a guitar, 12 I picked up my first Pearl Master drum set. I was an artist before I was an 'artist.'

Music's been with me from the get-go. It was always around me as a kid. Dad got me my first guitar when I was 11 and, at school, if you wanted to be cool you had to be in a band.

I saw the film 'Amadeus' from when I was five, which made me want to take piano lessons.

Hip-hop was the music that actually got me excited about it and the actual prospect of performing. I think I loved music from an early age because my parents wanted me to love it as much as they did. It was constantly there.

Music became my focus. At 13, I was jamming with my mates. At 15, I was playing clubs.

I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad.

I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five.

Music was something I found on my own. I got my first guitar when I was around 10, and it just all developed over time.

My father was in a dance band, and I wanted to do what he did, play the saxophone, but I couldn't blow a note, so he suggested the guitar. Chromatic harmonica was actually my first instrument, and I got very good at it - not quite Stevie Wonder, but very good.

I've always just adored music. It's my first love, really. I admire and respect people in the music business. You really have to work hard and diligently. Sometimes actors can be lazy and get away with it, but you can't do that if you're a musician.

Music plays a very important role in my life. I'm a frustrated musician. I play the drums.

I played music and sang from my earliest memories. The first pictures of me show me wandering around with a guitar that was larger than I was, and it became almost second nature to me.

Music is a nice friend to have around, whether it is just for yourself or for other people. If you can enjoy it, being professional is almost secondary.

My dad was a bass player in a Latino band when I was growing up. So we always had musical instruments in our basement.

Music is something that's always been a huge part of my life.

I've always been in music. I started out in music, and I will continue to do music.

Elvis came along when I was 10. My father gave me a bass ukulele. I taught myself how to play from a book to play some chords, so I was laying down 'Hound Dog' and things like that when I was 10 years old in 1955. That's the way I was. My ear was glued to the radio. I knew right then what I wanted to do.

I was never encouraged to do it and I played the accordion, which I hated. I wish I had taken piano because I definitely would have written more songs of my own, but I didn't.

Music was in the air when I was growing up. My siblings Katy, Dave and Phil were musical; my dad worked in inner-city New York where a musical revolution was taking place - folk music, rock n' roll, gospel music. My sister taught me to sing. My brothers taught me to play.

From an early age, I was infatuated with music. I always loved it and was always dancing or playing something.

I began playing drums when I was seven and guitar when I was fourteen, but it wasn't until the early '90s that I took music seriously.

When I was thirteen I only wanted to be a drummer.

I'd just play 'til my hands fell off. My parents would yell at me to stop because they couldn't stand the noise any more! I was terrible! It must have been hard for them to listen to me as a beginning drummer.

For me, I guess music has always been the through-line. You know, I played guitar from a really young age, and my dad played, and my cousin gave me a drum kit when I was 13, and I played bass guitar, so, you know, it was definitely always in the house.

Both my brothers are drummers.