I made that first record in 2008, alongside the EP, but my label at the time waited three years to release it. They thought maybe someone bigger would buy it, but they didn’t, so in the end they just released it themselves.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I’ve always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

All I do is make music.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

The wage for most musicians is a modest amount, and that includes me some of the time.

I grew up writing songs in my room on GarageBand, and I would make the beats just out of layering my vocals over and over again. Very Imogen Heap-inspired.

Literally wrote ‚Starboy‘ in 30 minutes.

When I first started making ambient music, I was setting up systems using synthesizers that generated pulses more or less randomly. The end result is a kind of music that continuously changes. Of course, until computers came along, all I could actually present of that work was a piece of its output.

Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?

I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it’s not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.

One of my most popular songs, ‚Satellites,‘ I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.

Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It’s so much going on in music right now and somebody has to make a difference.

I actually met The Game in my hood on Crenshaw and Slauson. I was outside on the block with 20 of my homies. I see the Range Rover, and we all walked up to his car. I handed him my CD.

That little Miley Cyrus… she’s like a little Elvis. The kids love her because she’s Hannah Montana, but what people don’t realize about her is she is such a fantastic singer and songwriter. She writes songs like she’s 40 years old!

Say there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter – for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.

Even before Snapchat, you go back into my career from Day One or interview people that knew me for 25 years, they’re going to tell you I’ve been DJ Khaled my whole life.

I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn’t want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. ‚Discreet Music‘ was like that, and ‚Music for Airports.‘ What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out.

I’m just changing the game because I know what the fans want and the people want ‚cause I’m a fan of hip-hop.

Looking at 2014, I look back: we made more money off ‚Mailbox Money‘ than we would have made off taking an advance from anybody. We made more money letting our fans buy the stuff directly from us than what any label could have offered us.

I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

Producing all my own songs and refusing to go to the hot producer. That’s the biggest risk I’ve taken so far.

Here in England, everyone’s a pop star, innit, whereas in America they believe in the term artist.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left.

Yeah, anybody can go in with two turntables and a microphone or a home studio sampler and a little cassette deck or whatever and make records in their bedrooms.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

Tony Visconti and I had been wanting to work together again for a few years now. Both of us had fairly large commitments and for a long time we couldn’t see a space in which we could get anything together.

Rock music is niche.

I’m well past the age where I’m acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You’re not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you’re not going to get played on radio and you’re not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

Cardi B put a lot of work in.

If I could, I would not do anything else. I’d just be in the studio for my whole life. I would never go to parties, events, and red carpets. I would rather just be in the studio for the whole time. I don’t even care. Nobody has to know what I look like. I just want to make music.

My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.

I have taken taking my music to labels for years, and everyone just thought it was creepy. They thought the images with the music were weird and verging on psychotic.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‚Are people interested?‘ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

To go indie is a thing. But to put an album in the stores, you need a distribution label.

It’s a weird thing when you make records. You try to hear it before you make it, so you walk into the studio with this idea of what you expect to happen, and that usually changes. That usually turns into something else, and that’s a good thing.

I want to make pop cool again, and the only way I can do that is by being ambitious and grand.

I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.

Probably the reason it’s a little hard to break away from the album format completely is, if you’re getting a band together in the studio, it makes financial sense to do more than one song at a time. And it makes more sense, if you’re going to all the effort of performing and doing whatever else, if there’s a kind of bundle.

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God… They’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

There’s something missing in the music industry today… and it’s music. Songs you hear don’t last, it’s just product fed to you by the industry.

Basically, I’m one of the greatest producers ever. And I’m also one of the greatest DJs ever. And I’m also one of the best executives ever.

Pop music will never be low brow.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It’s the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto.

I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

I’ve made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I’ve made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I’m proud of what I’ve done. In fact it’s been a good ride.

I respect Soulja Boy.

I could care less about the particular. I like to make music.

I need to know how many records I’ve sold, how many album equivalents from streaming, which territories are playing my music more than others, because it helps me in conversations about where we’re gonna be playing shows or where I might open a retail location, like a pop-up store or something.

Partnering with Atlantic Records creates the opportunity to take what we’re doing to the next level, without compromising.

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 the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music ‚made it‘ the same way. It’s all different. There’s no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.

Super-envious of the fact that Daft Punk can wear robot helmets and be one of the most famous bands in the world, while also understanding that will never be my situation.

Madonna and I are very different. Just saying. We’re very different. I wouldn’t make that comparison at all, and I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna: she’s a nice lady, and she’s had a fantastic, huge career – biggest pop star of all time.

You get to a certain age, and you are forbidden access. You’re not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines; you’re not going to get played on radio, and you’re not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

Technology has allowed people to make records really cheap. You can make a record on a laptop.