I definitely try to go above and beyond with live mixing and scratching.
Statik Selektah
I don’t do albums for album sales. I just do it as a conversation piece and a business card.
Statik Selektah
Some artists send their verses, and others record in my studio. Depends. I prefer them being there.
Statik Selektah
You can’t just say jazz is dead.
Statik Selektah
Especially in hip-hop, no one takes responsibility for their actions.
Statik Selektah
When I went to AI New England in Boston, I used to do my mixtapes, and honestly, if you look back at any of my mixtapes, every single mixtape tells a story.
Statik Selektah
Life imitates art and back around.
Statik Selektah
You got to have the right lawyer and good management. I went years and years without management and even a good lawyer; I used to handle contracts on my own, and it was definitely corners that they would cut. It wouldn’t have happened if I had a good lawyer behind me.
Statik Selektah
Every person I meet is a rapper, DJ, or makes beats.
Statik Selektah
Every record I make, I want people to feel what I used to feel when I used to crack open a CD and press play.
Statik Selektah
I’ve always been like the No. 1 Boston hip-hop fan.
Statik Selektah
I get mad if I’m not presented as an actual artist on tour. I don’t want to be seen as just some DJ that plays between sets. I have a bigger brand than that.
Statik Selektah
I had completely changed from being a mixtape DJ to being a producer and working with Nas and stuff like that.
Statik Selektah
When I made ‘Detroit vs. Everybody,’ I knew. I knew this for Eminem.
Statik Selektah
I come from a traditional hip-hop background.
Statik Selektah
Sampling is very important for me. It’s the backbone of hip-hop.
Statik Selektah
I grew up in a city – it’s called Lawrence, Massachusetts. It’s about half an hour north of Boston. When my parents got divorced, I moved to New Hampshire because my father worked up there.
Statik Selektah
I kinda gave my childhood to hip-hop, literally. I didn’t go to parties in high school. All I did – well, I was DJing parties in high school.
Statik Selektah
My mother used to stop me from going to DJ battles. I’d, like, cry, get really upset.
Statik Selektah
I started radio, actually, when I was 13. I started DJing when I was 13, but later in that year, I started a high school station at Phillips Academy. I didn’t actually go there, but it was in the town I went to high school in. So literally, within six months of DJing, they started mailing me records; it was crazy.
Statik Selektah
I grew up looking up to DJ Premier, who would have the illest hip-hop joint on everybody’s album.
Statik Selektah
I want to do more R&B, more reggae, everything.
Statik Selektah
I learned so much from listening to Jay-Z, M.O.P. and Gang Starr.
Statik Selektah
Gang Starr was like the blueprint of my career.
Statik Selektah
Brooklyn just got that energy to me that’s so hip-hop and so New York City. You know, New York City is the grittiest city in the world.
Statik Selektah
With ‘Ready to Die,’ that was some of the most honest rhymes of all-time. There’s some real dark material on there that Biggie was going through.
Statik Selektah