Chuck D

Never try to make the same record twice, even when people are screaming for the same sound.

Rap is supposed to be about keeping it real and not relinquishing your roots in the community. Without that, it's just posturing. Somebody who claims to speak for the 'hood don't need no private jet.

I'd rather have a hundred thousand or a million people saying I'm nuts and I'm crazy for my musical choices and what I've said lyrically, than a million people all raising their hand on the first day.

People aren't going to support an artist just because they have an audio file. They have to feel a real connection.

You should be a person inside the world with knowledge of your terrain. And if you lock yourself into the 2,000-by-3,000-square-mile, lower-48 box of the United States, you're going to be frustrated by its limitations. You gotta think outside the box.

My daughter's 19. I'm not asking her to develop as an artist. I'm just asking her to develop as a full person, human being.

I was inspired by the classic rock radio of the Seventies. They separated Chuck Berry and the Beatles from the Led Zeppelins and Bostons and Peter Framptons of the time. In many ways, classic rock became bigger than mainstream rock.

I'm recording freely, and if I make a song, I release it immediately, so I'm more likely to believe in one song at a time as opposed to albums.

People are so confused about race and hip-hop that people didn't even consider the Beastie Boys one of the greatest rap groups of all time because they were white.

The Internet was a saving grace for promoting and exposing, and even creating. It's a parallel world to the music industry that already exists, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

The immediacy of the technology of the web allows us, as songwriters, to write something very sharp and quick. That has a lot to do with helping a songwriter be more reflective of reality, instead of being in an area where you have to process things. It's the difference between processing fish and catching it in a boat.

You can't master time, but you have to work your hardest to manage it.