Quotes from Frank Dukes

I look at the big picture and try not to create with ego.

If you can make the best music ever but it requires bringing in a few different perspectives, I'd rather make the best music ever.

I come from the school of hip-hop where you just buy records and sample records all the time. Doing that is tough sometimes, because if you get a placement on a major record, your record could get shelved because of clearance issues.

I can see that everybody has their own challenges that they are dealing with. But what's so beautiful about music is that it brings people together, levels the playing field and opens people up.

I love the process of collaboration... to me it just makes sense.

I'm just at home all the time wearing jogging pants.

I make popular music but I'm not necessarily a pop produce.

I try to create something that draws you in without overthinking it. Something that resonates with you automatically that you don't have to think about. That's what the best pop is about: Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Nirvana - these guys made some of the most authentic and popular music.

When I go in the studio with Post, I have a really good idea of what he's going to gravitate to, what we can work with.

Broken Clocks' is actually a song I produced for my boy River Tiber featuring my boy Daniel Caesar.

I wanted to be a great producer so I studied great hip-hop producers, but also stuff beyond that: Phil Spector, David Axelrod, Gamble and Huff. They're equally as influential to me as Dilla, Premier, and Pete Rock.

My approach to making music has always been making ideas and developing them. Sometimes I develop them all the way by myself. The other part of development is I will work with my friends who are just some of the best producers in the world, give them an idea.

When you're producing, you're really just making a series of decisions.

I love Nirvana, Weezer and a lot of pop punk stuff - Blink-182, I loved.

As I change and grow, different things excite me and I just follow where that leads me.

Once '0 to 100' happened, it sort of spun this chain reaction - really the first big record that I was a part of. It was a big, life-changing thing for me.

I know people who have sampled gospel music, and then they go to clear the sample, and it's like, 'You can't take the Lord's music and make this.'

The thread that ties together everything I love is honesty in the intention.

I'm definitely interested by a lot of things outside of music - technology, film, quantum physics - and I'm realizing that I can put my creativity into anything I kind of choose to.

I might find out about a songwriter and start following them on Instagram. Within a day, we might be hanging out and feeling out whether we can work together.

I grew up on hip-hop and crate-digging and those sensibilities are deeply ingrained in me.

Internet has created the ability to connect people instantly.

I love music with real instruments. I'm not one of those guys that's a purist about analog vs. digital, but I love the analog approach. Sonically, I connect to that.

I totally embrace the different transformations we've seen in hip-hop throughout the years.