Jermaine Dupri Quotations

My last record, people were a little confused because I was trying to prove a production point. This time, my production credit is there.

Phil is the best engineer I've ever worked with because he makes it a point to understand the music that he's mixing, so it makes your work sound ten times better.

You'll hear my voice on some songs. The world has no idea what they're about to experience--Janet has the best production trio possible--and I guarantee, we will deliver!

We haven't had a slew of artists, but the artists we do come out with have always had the same momentum.

The timing is not right for us to record a song about the future when so many people have lost their lives. We will proceed in a few months, but right now it's about helping those who are dealing with the tsunami disaster and that should honestly be the focus.

It's one of the hardest feats in the music industry, maintaining and continuing to keep doing at the same pace for a lengthy amount of years.

Everybody's got to stop acting like they wear bandanas all day, every day. You've got to face the facts that you do sit on the phone sometimes.

They keep the song as street as it needs to be. It's got a good catchy hook where it can do what it needs to do on the radio, but they keep the song street where it will keep credibility in the hood.

I'm happy to have a situation where I can work with Big Boi. Not just because we're both from Atlanta, but because of his creativity, his musical ear and his ability to find new talent. His association with Virgin will add to the excitement that I'm bringing to the label.

In the last five years, lyrics have resembled diaries of those who write them. I think the fans like the records that seem closer to life.

If you don't know by now, you're never going to know.

When I came out rapping on my record, a lot of people said, Oh, you just want to be like Puff.

Because I was in Atlanta, people didn't realize I'm one of the real forefathers in the game.

People know me, and want to know me, as a baller more than anything else.

My father was a promoter of Fresh Fest, and they needed an opening act. He got me a slot as a dancer. We tried it out the first time in Atlanta and the crowd went crazy. I was the opening clown.

People always ask me how long somebody can last as long as I've been lasting and continue to keep doing it, so I figured that people didn't really know how to do that.

I'm one of those guys a lot of people watch, imitate, and then make it seem like they were the ones who did it first.

I wanted to feel like an artist for once in my life. I wanted to use other producers for respect, to let them know that I listen to other people's music and that I'm just not out here on my own page.

I go to clubs and if I notice the DJs are playing the records faster, then I'll push the beats a little on the next record I make. A lot of people don't know how to watch out for things like that.

All the records I've made have pretty much been big club turntable records. You need to feel the rhythm.

Ciara’s new single is a complete rip-off of Usher’s ‘U Got It Bad,’

I'd go dance at talent shows, and because I was young I had the upper hand on a lot of other crews. People thought it was cute. I used that to my advantage.

The thing I'm going through is probably like the same thing that Little Richard and all these other artists go through, that I hear about them, saying, 'Oh damn, you ain't gonna give me nothing till I die,' ... I feel like I'm one of those type of great people that just going to have to wait till it's all over with for people to really sit around and talk about it.

Before I was not in the television cameras every 5 minutes, I wasn't as visible, but this year I plan on being more visible to ensure that Virgin Rap Division does not lose. Although I am a very low key person, I am competitive, and with every ounce of my spirit, I will ensure that this label is taken seriously.

People are just really overreacting. It's just feel good music. We at Virgin are in no way promoting sex or whatever these media outlets continue to print.

In the Ferrari or Jaguar, switchin' four lanes Wit' the top down screaming out money ain't a thang

So So Def has been one of the most successful and consistent labels in the game in the last 10 years.