Another one of my favourite sayings is, you can't handpick your audience. I feel like I'm making music for people who think like me about music, and that takes a lot of different forms. I could never generalise - but I think if I were to generalise, I'd think that you would say that most of my fans are music lovers who are looking for something outside of the mainstream: maybe a little bit hard to pin down, a little bit hard to categorise.
DJ ShadowI remember when the big shift happened in 1996-97, when suddenly it dawned on the music community: 'We should license our music to commercials and sell out for all intents and purposes. It doesn't really matter.'
DJ ShadowThe story I always recite - and have had to recite so many times over the years to different lawyers and different people within Universal - is that the business end of Mo'Wax was basically, like, 'Give us the big ones samples first, and we'll see how we get on.' And I gave them the six or seven that were, to me, the ones that were the scariest, and the biggest use. It wasn't about the big names, necessarily - although that played into it a bit, with people like Bjork and Metallica.
DJ ShadowI would much rather people kick and scream and tear their hair out and accuse me of all kinds of blasphemy, than just have no opinion whatsoever.
DJ Shadow