El-P quotes:

That dark humor has always been a part of what I've done. It's always been somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

When we're putting out records that people are responding to, it's amazing. And it's obviously what we shoot for every time. It's a tricky balancing act. But as long as it's sort of a righteous idea, then you're good to go.

I think branching out is cool, but I think that you have to branch out in a way that makes some sort of organic sense. I would love to put out a rock record eventually, but it would have to somehow philosophically make sense for me.

You can't turn back technology and you can't turn back authoritarianism. You can't have one hand in the dirt and one hand in the crystal clear water and say that you're clean. That's just the way it is.

I've always believed that if you cannot do it, then you should not do it.Only when it comes to the point where you've literally dug yourself into a hole, where it's sink or swim, is that viable to me.

Oh my god what am I doing with my life?

There's a responsibility as a musician to do the music that you want to hear.

There are two types of people, two types of performers: Performers who know how to keep a show going literally when the power is gone and performers who haven't had that much experience and will panic and freak out and don't know what to do.

I don't have any delusions of grandeur. I just want to make music that doesn't make me bored.

I'm trying to consciously evolve myself. I have no delusions of grandeur.

Most people aren't happy about being consistent and staying at the same place for years. People want forward progress and motion.

My relationship to Brooklyn is probably the relationship that any 40-year-old man has to his hometown, which is that this is where I live, this what I know, yet it's different, it's changed. My fascination with the city has maybe subsided and now it's just where I'm from, where I live.

I believe that if you're an artist, it's like a gift. If you can do this for a living and you can be involved in it, it's something that you can't ignore. It's the chance for you to have a

My whole mode is to do what I want to do and let people understand me through that.

I'm not really one of these people who's been known for particularly hopeful sentiments.

Any issue and any problem, no matter what height you look at it from, no matter how much you extend past the first fractal, it's still a fractal of something that emanates from within your consciousness - from within the human consciousness. And it'll move on and manifest itself externally, and then those are what we pick up as societal ills. But all these battles we're fighting are internal. For me, it's reconciling hope with dread and trying to cut out some place in my mind where my heart can be protected a little bit.

I do these records. All of these ideas that I have, that I put out there, that inspire me to write, are a purging in a lot of ways. I have to expel them in order for myself to walk around and actually smile and be a regular, or a living, person.

You've gotta be an outsider a little bit to shake yourself loose from the mill, the "machine." In order to even cut the space in your life to pursue what most people literally cannot afford a moment to pursue. So, yeah. I think that not only is that the role of the artist, but it might be a requirement.

I'm a fan of some of the hyphy stuff. Hyphy has been going on a lot longer than the press has been recognizing it.

I think you get to a certain point in your life and where you grew up stops reminding you of when you grew up. Everything changes, everything metamorphosizes.

The fact of the matter is, if you're not putting out stuff that people are feeling, then your record label doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

Why should I be sober when God is so clearly dusted out his mind?

I am making art. It's not a job that you've gotta show up to and fill in your slot. This is a dream come true. You get the opportunity to say something, to make a piece of art and hang it on the wall forever. Sometimes you're gonna have to take your time.

The only thing an artist is useful for, and the only reason why we don't just line 'em up against the wall and shoot them, is because, at their best, they're the reflection of our lives, that most regular people can't even afford to think about.

Trying to separate myself from my instincts of pessimism and cut out and define what it is that I really do love, what I'm here to be, why I'm here, and what I think is worth being alive for and fighting for. And those things change, but I think that that's something I am always chasing.

At the core of everything I do, is not my ambition but my desire to make music. Somewhere along the line I stumbled onto something that was bigger, different than anything I had ever imagined, which was actually being involved with other people. I just don't live the average artist's life.

There's a segment of this world, there's a mind state that's permeated the intellectual consciousness of this world that comes from a certain type of people that looks at me and you and your average individual as a problem - like a blight on an otherwise potential paradise, something that needs to be cured.

Everyone just wants to feel good, and I don't think that all music is designed to make you feel good.

I think that everyone who does music, and everyone who does art, or everyone who decides at a young age that they're gonna do that, is someone who feels like an outsider. The world is not really set up for that.

I try to take a snapshot of who I am now, who I am becoming, as opposed to who I was when I was first starting to make records. I'm not trying to make boring adult music, but I try to make music more reflective of what matters to me now.

Change is a direct element of hip-hop. That's the whole thing with style.

My problem is not to reinforce or destroy any ideas anyone might have about me, how I do what I do, what my intentions are, the way that I do it. My only job as far as I can see is to do the music that I want to do. All those other things are completely out of my control.

A good rapper is a good rapper, a good album is a good album. I don't think anyone is inherently good.

No doubt, there are times when I'm like "We have all gotten really used to saying whatever the f - k we want to say," and it's something that I really take seriously, whatever that may be.

I think that people have been claiming hip-hop as being dead since the moment it started. I think there are people - and I can be included in that category sometimes - that get frustrated feeling like maybe the industry has handcuffed itself, or trained its artists to do or think about music in a way that classically hasn't led to the greatest records in hip-hop.

The worst part is that if you become part of a major - all these independent labels become farm teams for your corporate parent. Basically, you do all the work for years, blowing up an artist - you discover them, blow them up, you build their fan base. And then that artist is like, "Okay, now I'm here. Now I want more. I want to be bigger." And you're either going to be able to accommodate them, you're going to be able to figure out how to take that step with them, or you're going to lose them.

If you ask me what people want from me, they would probably just want me to be true to what I'm doing.

There is a difference these days between who's making the music and buying the music, in terms of the way that they think, grew up, and their perspective. It's become much more diverse.

I hope that people take away hope, maybe not in an obvious sense, but in the form of hearing somebody who's genuinely fighting to stay above water. And in that fight, there's hope. In that fight, maybe there's positivity.

I'm a pretty intense person. And I don't know if intense is fun. I put myself through the wringer. That's just how I work.

For me, growing up in hip-hop culture, it's all about having the next style, the new fashion, the new way to express yourself, the fly new beat. I can't sit still; I have no nostalgia. I don't have to have nostalgia.

The emergence of the independent hip-hop scene has replaced what we called the "underground scene". It's what the underground scene has evolved into: actual businesses.

We're fighting internal struggles, I am the cancer for my own cure.

My favorite era of hip-hop was between '85-'89. That was the era that got me to love hip-hop.

I've never had a huge collection of records; I've never been a beat digga.

I don't think hip-hop is a dying art form. I think it's impossible for hip-hop to be a dying art form.

Maybe my great struggle, and it's probably not anything different from too many other people, but it certainly is what drives the music, is a hugely internal one.

As you get bigger, your staff gets bigger, and your costs get bigger.

I can't sit in the same place. I gotta keep going.

Hip-hop is always moving. It's always looking for the next style; it's always trying to one-up the last person.

The crews that are going to be self-produced are going to make the great albums, as opposed to making these mix-tapes, these compilations - "Me over this guy" It sounds good individually, but the art of the record is something that is lost. It gets to the point where it's just vocalists and producers coming in and piecing things together.

I think that every record label has its trials and tribulations, its ups and downs. The only thing you can do is hope to recognize what it is that makes you great, and to try and continue to capture it.

I always wanted to do a deal with Russell Simmons, and now I've got my signature on a piece of paper with his.

There are all the offsprings of people who are influenced by punk. It sounds completely different - but it's still rock 'n' roll. When hip-hop came on the scene, it was the last legitimate creation of a new genre.

My father was a musician, and I've always loved writing. I grew up in New York City during a time when hip hop music was surrounding you with the hip hop culture, and it felt natural. I was a really huge fan of the music.

I've been approached by major labels every single year of my existence as an artist. Since 1996.

I'm not trying to change the face of hip-hop music. I'm trying to make my records and always take the next step for me.

I would feel pretty embarrassed if I was doing what I do and I wasn't at least attempting the eloquent translation of the human experience in some way.

There's nothing worse than being shackled by some miniscule sort of technology you have onstage, and I think your mettle is going to get tested in those moments.

So inane-I cause Colon Blow pain

At a young age, I really wanted to make music and make my own sort of thing. I'm sure if it wasn't music, it would have been writing, or it would have been maybe painting. I just always had the drive to try and make something with my hands and to just pull something out of myself and shape it and see it in front of me, if that makes any sense.

I couldn't really be a part of high school, because I have a terrible time doing things that I don't want to do. I'm not good at it. It's not even like, I'm a rebel. I'm just bad at it, you know?