Quotes from Russ

I started playing instruments before I started making beats, and I was never the best guitarist or the best pianist or the best drummer. And when I started making beats, I was not the best beatmaker, and when I started making hooks, I was not the best vocal melody person. When I first started rapping, I wasn't the best rapper at all.

I was voted Most Likely to Make a Teacher Retire.

Being self-made means doing things your own way - and doing it without any handouts.

When I was making beats, I don't remember thinking about doing it as a career, I just remember that every day I wanted to do it.

Every time I put out music and it goes well, it's a confirmation of your taste and your gut.

From the engineer to the producer, all of these roles are critical to creating a song.

When I was coming up, I was, and am, producing, mixing, mastering, and writing everything. I would say that all the time. For one, self-sufficiency is a message that should be put out there: you don't have to outsource everything. Two, I'm proud of it.

I didn't go to my prom. I didn't go to my homecoming.

If you're an artist, create music and put it out on the Internet. If you do this consistently, your fan base will continue growing, and that will power your entire career.

I would have only doubted myself if I was really attached to the result of what I was doing, but I was always doing it and will always do it for the love of making songs, and if you liked it you liked it, if you didn't, you didn't. It was always pure and always will be pure.

I think talking things out is therapeutic.

Drake is my favorite rapper.

I'm not obsessed with the idea of doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're a rapper. Walking around with cash that you haven't even provisioned for tax. Spending all of your time in the designer store to create some weird impression. I'm not interested, bro. I just like making music, and that's it.

What inspired me was the love of making music and having no one around and just saying, 'I've gotta figure this out.'

When you're sitting in the basement trying to get on, you have no choice - you've gotta figure out how to make a song: 'I've gotta bang on these buttons until it sounds good.'

I don't deviate - once you get validated for being you, I don't know why you would deviate. I stick to my gut and my taste.

That's the thing: I'm not opposed to working with people. I'm just not one of these people that feels the need to hop around the industry and get this guy's beat and get this guy's hook.

My best friend - who I've known since I was 12 - and I started the DIEMON company together.

You can have a bunch of individually good players, but it doesn't matter. You gotta learn to play like a team.

I love to sit down and have a conversation with like-minded people.

I think people sometimes get my message misconstrued and believe I'm trying to brag, but I'm genuinely trying to show people that you can do it all yourself, and there's so much power and freedom in that.

Trends die. That's the natural thing about a trend. It's natural for people to be followers and be sheep and go with a trend.

Drake and Kanye make me want to get better.

Advice number one: listen to your gut - it's never gonna lead you wrong. Number two: trust yourself. The root of everything is self-belief.