“I probably started trying to make beats at around 12.” — El-P

I always liked the idea that you can put something in you onto a canvas or a piece of paper and have it exist there and not inside you. It's a way to control things.

I grew up on listening to, like, Mantronix and BDP and EPMD and Kool G Rap and Ultramag and Public Enemy and Fat Boys and Run DMC and a lot of those early records, those Rubin-era records. Those were always snare- and stab-heavy records.

I had a boom box with a dual cassette deck and a mic, so I used to make pause tapes. I think a lot of people started like that because it was all I had. I would just take rap records that I liked and just loop the beat by pressing pause and record and make, like, five minutes of these beats.

I really don't believe in going too far out of your way to hunt down somebody to do a song.