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There are a lot of music startups that don't have anything to do with anyone's love for music. It has to do with them having a glorious IPO and then retiring to the Bahamas somewhere. It's important to keep that in mind.

DJ Shadow

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DJ Shadow
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: June 29
Club Dj
Composer
Disc Jockey
Record Producer
Hayward
California
Joshua Paul Davis
Josh Davis
Joshua Davis
Anything
Music
Bahamas
Important
Retiring
Mind
Glorious
Love
Somewhere
Anyone
Keep

More quotes by DJ Shadow

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I would agree with you that there's 90% imitation and 10% innovation. That's true of any genre.
DJ Shadow
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To be honest, I didn't really get into making music to be an album artist.
DJ Shadow
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I've always been compared to people. It's a revolving cast that comes and goes - obviously, sometimes people stay.
DJ Shadow
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It's about respecting what I think people like about the original music. I'm not gonna ever take it to the extent that I'm kinda George Lucas-ing moments of the album over and over again, trying to get them right over the next 30 years - I don't wanna do anything like that. But, yeah - it's a... fascinating conundrum through the years.
DJ Shadow
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When I first pursued this with Universal, they had no idea what to do. But now that we've gone through the whole process and I've signed this 60-page document that says what we can and can't do, I suppose it will be a little bit easier for the next person.
DJ Shadow
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Any good album title has multiple meanings, and I like choosing titles where I find myself repeating it, almost like a mantra.
DJ Shadow
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The music that I have always liked has always been more rooted in anger or sadness or alienation or any of those inspirational factors that drove rock'n'roll, gospel, and blues. I tend not to value a more pop aesthetic.
DJ Shadow
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When I think about the stuff I turned down it's kind of insane.
DJ Shadow
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As for my store, most artists' sites send you to a third-party storefront like iTunes, whereas we're disseminating it ourselves. I was always uncomfortable with the thought of sending somebody who came to my site to buy something to some other store. It just occurred to me, Why can't we do this?
DJ Shadow
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I saw. I wanted to start my own store so people would know that what they were buying was real. There were bootlegs around at the time that had my name on the cover, but the music had nothing to do with me. I'm not trying to compare myself to [Jimmie] Hendrix, but back in the '70s, there were some Hendrix bootlegs.
DJ Shadow
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I've tried to tell people that the reason I don't really get excited over good press is that I don't want to get agitated over bad press. I don't wanna get too high on good press, too low on bad press. It's just not a healthy way to engage with my own feelings about my music.
DJ Shadow
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One of my favorite things that Yahoo does on a regular basis is this story: Wealthiest Rap Artists. That's an example of the internet just perpetuating this myth that we're all just sitting around in these mansions like Steven Tyler, bopping around in our swimming pool. It's bullshit.
DJ Shadow
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Cutting and pasting is the essence of what hip-hop culture is all about for me. It's about drawing from what's around you, and subverting it and decontextualizing it.
DJ Shadow
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There's any number of DJs who have inspired me over the years. I don't actively go out in clubs, so I can't tell you if there's some hot new talent out there who everybody's aware of but I'm not.
DJ Shadow
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Through it all, the words of John Peel echo strongly within me: you have support the music that's being made now. You have to continue to look forward and learn from what's happening. That's my philosophy, anyway.
DJ Shadow
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It's satisfying to put out new music. And I think that's the context in which I'm comfortable revisiting things from the past.
DJ Shadow
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My problem with iTunes is that I don't have any say in how I'm represented on the site.
DJ Shadow
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I tend to gravitate away from the more trendy Ibiza style of dance music. It's not me.
DJ Shadow
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I couldn't make a real drum'n'bass or dubstep record to save my life. But I can be influenced by them in small ways.
DJ Shadow
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When I'm looking for DJ sets and stuff to drop, I look for music that I feel is gonna get the reaction I want from the crowd.
DJ Shadow