I had low self-esteem because of my environment. I only compete with myself.ĭid music keep you grounded as you grew up in Compton?ĭefinitely. I try not to compete with other people’s expectations. I’ve got to be better than you or make more money than you. The pressure to live up to this hyper-masculinity-I gotta wear a gold fucking chain. When I was fucking 10 years old at the talent show, I was rapping, you know, but I don’t like the stigma that comes with being a rapper. I grew up on Pac, Cube, Dre, Kanye, Childish Gambino, Eminem, Lil Wayne. If people want to call me an emcee, then I get it as I am a Black man from Compton. I just want to make music that’s either good or bad. If I called myself a rapper, I would diminish what I’m trying to do. I use my voice and words the same way I use pianos or drums it’s all one to me. I don’t want to feel bad about myself because I’m trying to be a rapper and bar everyone up. Because out here in LA, rap comes with such a stigma, and I don’t agree with all the things it comes with. I don’t want to be looked at as a rapper at all. It feels like there’s been more rapping on your tracks recently. Funkenstein records, you can hear all these different characters. Those howls you hear in my music are definitely from George Clinton and Funkadelic. I actually met Quik, but I was too star-struck to say anything. I was trying to make a DJ Quik song, but with more of an electronic template so I could bridge the gap between dance music and G-funk. If you took his voice off the songs on his albums, they’re still filled with great dance records. Is that just you showing your roots?ĭuring the time I made that song, I listened to a lot of DJ Quik. There’s often a P-Funk influence in your music, too. I want to make an album that’s so fucking good it comes pre-loaded on people’s computers.
I remember I had this old-ass PC computer, and it had Kind of Blue automatically installed when you opened up Windows Media Player. You could tell the fashion was just as important as the music.
Their music had so much style, but they did too. I fucking love jazz, especially Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. With this project, I’m working with string sections and allowing myself to go to more of a jazzy place than I would usually go to. I have a girlfriend, a dog, and neighbors who actually know me it’s different! It meant I could sit down in one place and write a whole project with no distractions. This is probably the first time I’ve not been touring for like five years. I allowed myself to go deep into my feelings. I worked with James Blake just as lockdown was happening, so it captures those feelings of isolation. The name of the record is I Can’t Go Outside. And second, his impact on hip-hop history is both truly profound and largely unappreciated. After this epic interview, two things become quite clear: First, Quik is an open book with a very precise memory. Dre helped him deal with some of the tragedies he’s witnessed over the years. Quik even spoke on the money, the girls, and the street drama that surrounded him throughout his music career, and how his work with Dr. Quik broke down everything from his sudden superstardom with the song “Tonite” to his mid-career collaborations with artists ranging from 2Pac to El Debarge, and even some of his little-known contributions to massive hits by the likes of 5 0 Cent and Rakim. “I don’t even talk to my mom this long,” Quik quipped as he went deep, connecting what he was doing musically to some of the key moments in his own remarkable biography, going into detail about what equipment and techniques he used, and speaking on all the people, places, and especially his own mindset during each recording session. W hile he may not be the platinum hitmaker he was during the 1990s, he’s still a passionate sonic artist who's blazed a creative path that allowed his music to evolve into a very personal sound. Quik’s gone through several distinct phases, working both in the spotlight and behind the scenes, and Complex caught up with him last week to speak about all of it in detail. Compton-born DJ Quik has been a force in hip-hop since the late 1980s.