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I would rather have 10 people working on a record that are really committed and believe in it and love it, than 50 people who have no idea who I am or what I'm for.

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
Believe
Really
Committed
Would
Record
Love
Records
People
Working
Rather
Idea
Ideas

More quotes by DJ Shadow

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I tend to gravitate away from the more trendy Ibiza style of dance music. It's not me.
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I'm not going to get on any anti-corporation soapbox to an extreme level.
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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.
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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.
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Frequently, when I'm compared to someone, I'm like, Is that really what people think I sound like?
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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.
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I got asked to remix a lot of movie themes, like Mission Impossible, which other people ended up doing quite well. But it was just never my thing.
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.
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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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When I make music, it takes me two hours to get into the flow. To me it's like tapping into some kind of subconscious frequency: I just have to turn everything else off, open up part of myself, expose my fears and try to work through it in the music that I'm making.
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'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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The conventional wisdom of fandom is that you must give your fans anything they want. But I've never felt that that's a healthy attitude - and that comes from being a Star Wars fan.
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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Like a lot of other DJs, I've been wondering when the first DJ game was going to happen. Somebody even pitched me on their own idea and I thought, I'm not a video game startup I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this.
DJ Shadow
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If I wanted to contribute to the hyphy movement, what good is it making a hyphy record that isn't embraced by that community?
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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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