Top 75 Flying Lotus Quotes

Thundercat put me on to George Duke.

I don’t like to brag about it, but there are people I’ve worked with at the start of their career, and they’ve all become very, very successful.

I know what it’s like listening to Aphex Twin driving down the beach.

My collaborations tend to be pretty organic. It starts off with me being a fan first.

I was 10 years old when the Northridge quake happened, and I lived right in the area, so it was a traumatic thing for me. I’d never had anything like that happen before. It’s always stuck with me.

I don’t want to do one of those records where it’s like a compilation of a bunch of all sorts of rappers on my beats. I don’t find those to be focused albums.

I believe there’s more than this – that maybe, when we die, our brains conjure up some kind of shutdown experience, and that’s what people try to sum up as the afterlife.

I need to help people to create the best work that they can. It’s just something a producer should do anyway.

I’m always seeing stuff and imagining scenes in my head when I’m making music.

When I got into music, that was another way to be by myself.

I go through phases when I’m super into my anime stuff.

A strong concept is the most important thing in creating a record. When you can listen to it and see a whole movie in your head, that’s what separates an instrumental album from a beat tape.

George Clinton is the best storyteller in the world.

I found so many reasons to call it ‘You’re Dead!’ – not just because I wanted to make this album about the journey through death. I was watching the music scene that I came up with kind of go stale and watching the lights go out on a lot of my friends.

I was first inspired to make music by my cousin Oran. He was making music on an old Mac II by himself in his little lab, and I just started taking up after him. He was the first person to put a machine in front of me to work on. He was like my big brother, someone who I looked up to.

I feel like my music has a reputation for being pretty serious or whatnot, but I like having fun.

I just understand that I’m supposed to be one of those people that disrupts the flavor a little bit instead of being part of the same sound as everyone else.

Whenever I am making stuff, I got a thing in the back of my mind: ‘Oh, this would be so perfect for’ whoever.

I took to the synthesizer. My cousin had some synthesizers, and I’d always make stuff on those things.

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, which doesn’t feel like L.A. It’s a bit different. It’s still L.A. County, but it’s not the same, it’s not the kind of place where they embrace you for being a weirdo. You were just left alone with your Nintendo, and that was my life.

We’re all trying so hard to be beautiful, but the people in ‘Kuso’ are trying so hard to be disgusting.

I love Snoop – I grew up with his music – but I never thought for a second that we’d work together.

Takashi Miike is definitely one of my top five, you know?

I played saxophone for a while when I was a kid.

I wish I could write music notation. Even if I couldn’t play it, I wish I could just write it.

I can’t let darkness be what guides my decisions. I can’t let that be what guides how I treat people. I can’t let that be what drives my art, either.

For me, being 10 years old and seeing ‘Jurassic Park’ for the first time blew my mind. I want music to feel like that.

Dilla could flip a boring record and make you feel like you were flying.

I always feel like the past informs my present musically.

Before saying, ‘This track is so dope; it’s gonna go on the album,’ I like to take some time away from it and see how I feel about it in a few months. If it’s gonna get released, I gotta love it – it’s gonna have my name on it forever.

I remember Usher came up to me at Coachella once, and it’s like, ‘Are you sure you’re talking to the right person? How do you even know what I look like? You’re not supposed to know who I am.’

I decided to play the saxophone because it was the most obvious instrument in my family. There were a lot of saxophone players in my family, and there were extra saxophones, so that was an easy one to pick up. It was fun – it was okay – it just wasn’t me. It didn’t feel like my instrument, so I never followed through.

I’m a silly guy.

Reading music has opened up me up so much. I’ve been experimenting for so long and trying to make sense of things just from my ears. It takes forever. Now I can get where I want much quicker.

I’m a geek, man.

I like to stay in the space of creativity, and I want to go towards that all the time.

Truth be told, I think jazz is a mind-set. It’s not necessarily, like, this guy picked up a horn and did this or whatever.

Childish Gambino – him and I are the same age, and I really like him.

I never leave L.A. for too long. I’m not one of those that go on a tour of the whole world. I probably should be, but I’m not.

When I was in middle school, that’s when I first started making beats. I was maybe 14, 16, something like that.

I’m really grateful for all of the things I’ve had to learn along the way, you know? I don’t know if I would want to say anything to my younger self. That way, you know, it really means something. If you have to go through it all, it really means something.

I wouldn’t want to get involved with a game that’s a stinker – I can smell one of those a mile away.

Death is a reality, and one day I’m not going to be here anymore, and whatever’s next might not be that bad either.

The first beat that I ever made that I thought was actually worth a damn was called ‘Toilet Paper Nostrils,’ and I made it when I had a cold. I had the worst cold ever. And I had toilet-paper nostrils making music, but it was really reflective of how I felt. It was a really sad trumpet sound.

I am a big cinema nerd! I’ve absorbed a lot of films.

It’s tough when you’re an artist because you get to go around the world and make a lot of friends, but guess what? One day, all these people that you love are going to die, from DJ Mehdi to DJ Dusk to J Dilla to Austin Peralta to DJ Rashad.

Part of what I like to do with Brainfeeder is to get the younger kids hearing jazz, because they don’t know where to go to really hear it. Brainfeeder gives me a platform to put out people like Kamasi Washington or Austin Peralta.

I like comedy.

I actually really liked the music to the ‘Friday the 13th’ Nintendo game. I still listen to it all the time. I sampled it in a couple records, too. It’s hypnotic and dark but also really pretty.

I feel like part of my journey as a filmmaker is to tell different stories, whether they are just a black perspective on things that aren’t necessarily hood movies, or Tyler Perry movies or Ava DuVernay movies. Love all those people, but that whole thing has been sowed up already.

I’m the kind of person who needs to be challenged all the time. I need my brain to go, or else I just end up playing video games all day, you know? That’s cool too, I guess, at times.

I love my Fender Rhodes. It’s been a part of my family since that keyboard came out, and I’ve had it reworked so that it’s in the best condition it’s actually ever been in. That is my baby.

I work a lot.

If I work with Bjork, then I’ll be a happy soul, man.

There are things I’ve seen and experienced in this world – things they don’t talk about in too many books.

I get homesick driving to the grocery store.

I love ‘Pop Team Epic,’ which is really trippy.

I’m just a fan of art and culture.

I’m not much of a coffee person, but when I wake up and the sun is shining through the window, I’ll get a lil’ bit of green tea and get to work.

I’d love to work with Drake. I got Drake beats.

I like when my mind is being stimulated and challenged, and I’m forced to be creative.

‘Cosmogramma’ is basically the studies that map out the universe and the relations of heaven and hell.

Sometimes I feel evil!

In high school, I was that guy who was trying to be cool with everybody, but I never really had a core group of friends.

I was a real big fan of Lil Wayne when he first came out.

My music divides people!

I’m so thankful that I had music to turn to in the dark times and be able to understand myself through it.

The Soft Machine’s ‘Volume Two’ inspired me heavily. That record just feels like it was all done in the same breath. It’s genius, and it’s silly at times. But I love the fact that every time I listen to it, I listen from the beginning and want to play it out.

I love Dilla, and who knows where this beat thing would be without him.

Before I started Brainfeeder, there were rumblings in our own circle about creating a label for us all. Then I started to see all these other ones from Europe try to capitalise on the scene. It didn’t make sense to me that there were all these people who were trying to build on something that was in our backyard.

I like Philip Glass. I think he’s made some really great contributions to his field. I love his style of playing – it’s very loop-style.

Kendrick is a true genius artist.

If I see a cop, it’s not like, ‘Oh, there’s a cop who’s gonna keep me safe.’ It’s more, ‘There’s a cop who might be having a bad day, so don’t make eye contact.’