D'Angelo could sing the phonebook and it would sound good.

The cologne you pick should make you feel good when you go out with it. I think confidence comes across more than any other of our attributes.

Kids can make fun of you for having the wrong shoelaces: that's just kids. But I don't think I had any trouble making friends.

So sometimes if I'm working with a rapper, like Ghostface Killah or Nas, producing usually means, in hip-hop, that you make the music. You make the beat, and you give it to them. And they write the rhymes.

I didn't really get that good at cutting because I didn't have those three years of gestating and nurturing my skills in the bedroom. I was kind of, like, out and playing in clubs after three of four months, because I was pushy with promoters. But I would just listen to the radio - Stretch Armstrong and Red Alert - and then I would go hang out with Mayhem, who did the WNYU hip-hop show.

You have to put these hooks in it, you know? You've got to make sure you got all that ear candy in it to get it through the gate.

I remember that the bass was turned up slightly more on the mix from last week, and I thought that was good - or whatever. Like, there were some little things in there that he said that he came to, like, really enjoy my opinion or at least, like, my little comments on the songs. So I was kind of destined to probably be a studio rat.