Quotes from Mike Will Made It

I did 'We Can't Stop' for Rihanna, but it never worked. Every time I would play 'We Can't Stop' I was like 'this is the new 'Party in the U.S.A.'' I was like OK if I keep saying this is the new 'Party in the U.S.A.,' why don't I go to the girl who did 'Party in the U.S.A.?'

People told me that Miley's '23' wasn't hip-hop. Let me tell you, she went in and owned that track.

I like blessing others around me. When you work hard, it's just dope to give back to the people around you.

It's like I have three different brains.

I don't spend a bunch of money on jewelry or sunglasses, because I lose them a lot.

You can scroll through my iTunes and I've got everything. I've got Ace Hood, Alt-J, Annie Lennox, Arctic Monkeys, Beanie Sigel, the Beatles, Beth Hart, Big Sean, Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, Chief Keef, Coldplay, the Flaming Lips, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, OutKast, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Gabriel, the Smiths, and the list goes on from there.

You wanna champion someone from your city and it blows it up.

I do it all, man. I produce, I do my own wardrobe and my own ironing, too!

For 'Black Beatles' to be so true to us and our sound - we weren't chasing a sound - it solidifies that the world is ready for us and what we have to come.

It doesn't matter if it's platinum or 10-times platinum - it's a certification that lets me know that I'm not wasting my time in the studio. That being said, I don't let those certifications run my life.

Those are two artists that I worked with real closely. Me and Miley are real close, me and Future are real close.

Matter fact, my girl complains about how much I'm in the studio working. But she sees the results as they roll out.

I'm not really the type that likes to put out a project just to say I've put it out - I like to make them count.

If you put your time and energy into developing creatively, that's where you'll go.

I can work with all these different kinds of artists and still be able to come up with huge records. Not just cool records, but game-changing records.

Jimmy Iovine, he pretty much started off as an engineer and a producer, and then he started up a label. Then he built his label to have big artists like Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. Then he started up a headphone company and made it a billion dollar business. He's a genius to me.

I'm a producer, not just a beatmaker but a producer.

I don't want to be on the mic, man. I want to stay producing.

As far as rapping goes, as long as you are telling the truth and you have a good flow, then you win.

Whoever has a next-level ear needs to be an Eardrummer.

At the beginning of my career before anything started propelling, I used to blow up everybody. I was trying to work with whoever got next.

I didn't have no college friends. All the artists the college folks were listening to were my homies. I was leaving class, literally, to record with them.

No teacher ever skipped the student process... if you want to be a leader, you have to be a follower first.

I wanted 'Formation' to be a woman empowerment song, but Beyonce made it into a culture empowerment song.