As an independent artist, you're always figuring out how you're going to fund your next album.
Look: I download music illegally, if I really want it. But I always then buy the record - I support art.
I think Sam Smith's dad got a huge loan or something to help his career. Those things can help artists get attention, but I guess my song 'Say You Won't Let Go' proved it's about the song.
Everything affects hip-hop. The question is, how does it affect the money that corporations are going to invest to put out different kinds of hip-hop?
Back when Napster first came along, I started telling everybody Napster was like shooting yourself in the foot because you're stealing music. The record companies don't pay for us to make records - the bands do.
I think artists are always investigating how to have an economic, political platform. At one time, artists were supported by the Church. Then they were supported also by the state.
There are people who are like monkeys in a cage just hitting the coke button. They don't really get that for [musicians and artists] to do these things, they have to fund them. They have to have something to pay the rent.
I'm against government giving money to artists, but I'm not against artists taking money. Just like I don't have a moral problem with people taking healthcare from the government, but I don't think government should give it.
I pay for all my music.
The record companies don't give you a chance, like in the old days when they went, 'Here's a pile of money. Go make a good record!'
In Germany, we often hear the absurd complaint that museums don't have the money to buy paintings. Of course, I'm not talking about me and my paintings. There are, after all, more popular painters in this country.
A development deal is where they're giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they'll put an album out.
I think it might be nice if there was a Cosimo de' Medici around today, offering commissions to the poor, but talented artists.
If you're on an indie label, you're not getting enough money. And if you're on a major, you're not getting enough support.
When you're signed to a big label you're always in the position of convincing them, especially now because labels are barely keeping the lights on, so getting them to spend a little bit of money is really hard.
The eighties turned the whole system upside down. They would sign three groups and give them five or ten million dollars each to make three records. Out of those three records maybe one would be a hit. The economy changed, and that's why the music changed.
The only thing major labels can really offer is money.
