There's something in the German language that makes you feel like you're getting a hug and a backstab at the same time. El-P More Quotes by El-P More Quotes From El-P I think that people have been claiming hip-hop as being dead since the moment it started. I think there are people - and I can be included in that category sometimes - that get frustrated feeling like maybe the industry has handcuffed itself, or trained its artists to do or think about music in a way that classically hasn't led to the greatest records in hip-hop. El-P artistpeoplethinking There's a segment of this world, there's a mind state that's permeated the intellectual consciousness of this world that comes from a certain type of people that looks at me and you and your average individual as a problem - like a blight on an otherwise potential paradise, something that needs to be cured. El-P intellectualaveragepeople I think you get to a certain point in your life and where you grew up stops reminding you of when you grew up. Everything changes, everything metamorphosizes. El-P things-changegrew-upthinking My problem is not to reinforce or destroy any ideas anyone might have about me, how I do what I do, what my intentions are, the way that I do it. My only job as far as I can see is to do the music that I want to do. All those other things are completely out of my control. El-P wantjobsideas A good rapper is a good rapper, a good album is a good album. I don't think anyone is inherently good. El-P rapperalbumsthinking I do these records. All of these ideas that I have, that I put out there, that inspire me to write, are a purging in a lot of ways. I have to expel them in order for myself to walk around and actually smile and be a regular, or a living, person. El-P writingorderideas Everyone just wants to feel good, and I don't think that all music is designed to make you feel good. El-P feel-goodwantthinking Change is a direct element of hip-hop. That's the whole thing with style. El-P elementsstylehip-hop There are two types of people, two types of performers: Performers who know how to keep a show going literally when the power is gone and performers who haven't had that much experience and will panic and freak out and don't know what to do. El-P gonetwopeople At the core of everything I do, is not my ambition but my desire to make music. Somewhere along the line I stumbled onto something that was bigger, different than anything I had ever imagined, which was actually being involved with other people. I just don't live the average artist's life. El-P artistambitionaverage Everyone just wants to feel good, and I don't think that all music is designed to make you feel good. Sometimes it's to make you feel amped, or angry, or nervous. I was listening to a lot of Public Enemy when I made the record. El-P feel-goodlisteningthinking I wanted people to know that I was making what I was making just on a sampler, basically. El-P people We're not steadfast about not repeating mistakes. El-P mistake I am trying to change hip-hop music because I do feel there are places people can go with production and the structure of an album that they haven't gone yet. But, like I said, I don't have any delusions of grandeur. I just want to make music that doesn't make me bored. El-P boredtryingpeople If you are a good writer you use your life experience to do something different than someone who is 20-years-old can do. That is where you get your power. That is our power as a group. I am not trying to make the same music I made 10 years ago. El-P life-experiencedifferenttrying The advancement of style is the cornerstone of hip hop. There is no correct or conservative way to make rap music. Rap is and must remain the answer, the alternative, to the conservative approach of making music. El-P styleraphip-hop I like being a rapper and cursing and getting paid. But at some point I feel like I'm going to be an old angry ass man, who is going to run the school board or city council. El-P runningmenschool I am making art. It's not a job that you've gotta show up to and fill in your slot. This is a dream come true. You get the opportunity to say something, to make a piece of art and hang it on the wall forever. Sometimes you're gonna have to take your time. El-P dreamjobsart My relationship to Brooklyn is probably the relationship that any 40-year-old man has to his hometown, which is that this is where I live, this what I know, yet it's different, it's changed. My fascination with the city has maybe subsided and now it's just where I'm from, where I live. El-P citiesmenyears You can't turn back technology and you can't turn back authoritarianism. You can't have one hand in the dirt and one hand in the crystal clear water and say that you're clean. That's just the way it is. El-P technologywaterhands
