On freedom: "There's nothing like freedom. You got to be out there talking to people. A lot of these motherfuckers are not really in touch. They write about the street but they don't even hang in the street. It's like they're in a protective glass writing about the street. They send a guy into the club to see if it's OK, like 'Is it OK, can I get out?' What kind of life is that? People are freaked out by my life, like 'You went up to Rahway State Prison by yourself to visit your boy?' I don't care. I'll go to hell. I'll go down to hell, give the devil five, and we'll break out."

On his former label: "I want to call the head of the record label at Dreamworks and tell him that they need a guy like me working the front office. They haven't been professional enough to call me and say 'Keith, why don't you come run this label?' I need to be the head of Dreamworks. I think I could make that company happen. I'm tired of them spending a lot of money on nothing. I mean, they spent five million on a movie about some toys. I want all the head officials, Spielberg and all them, to sit down at a meeting table and say that Keith can go out and run the label the way I want to run it. I have a lot of ideas for a company like that."

On creative control: "Now you got motherfuckers following you into the studio. You have surveillances. You have cops in the studio with you. You got the A&R in there. The record company president is sitting down next to you. Two ladies from the label. The receptionist. Everybody's watching your project. And people aren't sticking to their jobs no more. These days, the receptionist got tracks. The mailroom guy got tracks. You come in the office, the janitor's got a DAT. He's like 'Yo, I got two tracks.' "

On the anxiety of influence: "When I watch BET, I see myself. When I watch MTV I see myself, except if I'm looking at the Backstreet Boys or N'Sync or Brittany Spears, cause that's not me. Everybody black is doing something I already did. So I'm not learning from the blacks. If anything, I might get an idea from Marilyn Manson, though, because at least he's original."

 

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Illustrations from www.smellypoop.com/, www.corbis.com, www.mansonmosque.hollowgen.net/
Photomodified by Oates

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