[Alicia Keys was quoted by USA Today as saying she was] disappointed that these things keep happening. ... there's hot parties every night, and you just had one minor incident. |
[Earning his rightful share is one of Jon's top priorities right now. The deal comes at a time when he has been very vocal about his unhappiness with his most recent label home, TVT Records. He told Billboard that he is] very unhappy ... don't know how to pay people and take care of the people that helped take his label to another level. |
[Jon's been in the lab with Too Short as well.] Short is like 'Uncle Short,' ... Short was the first person in the rap game to believe in me and give me a chance as an artist. I was signed to Short's label and he let me out of the contract with no problems -- he let me do my thing. Plus, he was always there for me whenever I needed him to get on some records. |
[Miami] is just the perfect city. The good thing is you can go to two or three parties a night. |
50 Cent is going to collaborate and appear on certain projects with BME artists, ... And I'm going to collaborate and appear on certain projects with G-Unit. |
Andrew [Farriss] and Garry [Beers] and myself have been collaborating with other artists to just have a huge pool of songs ready, ... We weren't sure if [our new singer] was going to be a woman or a man, so some of the keys were written around a lady's voice and some keys were written around a guy's voice. And we just sat there madly pulling songs and J.D. goes, 'I like this one, this one's great.' Obviously it's really important that J.D.'s involved. |
Basically 50 and Scrappy were already good friends, ... While we were out on tour, 50 came to me with the business proposition, and we sat down and worked it out. |
I grew up on N.W.A N.W.A and Too Short were my favorite groups. So to just be in the studio, and for him to listen to me and let me guide him, ask me what I think... I still can't believe I'm cool with Cube like that, 'cause that's Ice Cube. |
I think I gave myself like a month and I had 150 beats so [the artists on my label] could pick the hottest [ones]. I have a catalog now of about 600 beats. |
I'm just happy to be honored as someone who's making music. |
Me and my team got it down to science, ... I just go in and do it. My job is to make beats and make something hot. When I go in, I catch a vibe. 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. I just keep spitting them out. I got all these artists, and we gotta get these albums out. If I don't do beats, we don't put no damn albums out. That's my motivation right there. |
They put us in these boxes, and they think you?re not supposed to go outside the box. When I grew up, you listened to the radio (and) you heard everything from Run-D.M.C. to Led Zeppelin. It was just radio. I grew up on all (these) different types of music. I should be able to make all different types of music. |
You have to listen to that song at 11, that's just the way it is, |