Even when I was a hip-hop DJ ...

Even when I was a hip-hop DJ I always kept it classy. The motto is always 'flashy but classy.' You've got to be original and stand out from the crowd and take some chances. But you've always got to keep it classy.
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 Mayer Hawthorne

Quotes from the same author

I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.
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 Mayer Hawthorne
I grew up in the '80s and '90s listening to Public Enemy and Mobb Deep and the Smashing Pumpkins. I don't even know what it was like in the '60s - I wasn't alive then - so the Mayer Hawthorne sound is taking what I can learn from the classics, and blending it with my hip-hop DJ and producer background and punk-rock bands that I played in as a kid.
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 Mayer Hawthorne
A big part of the Motown formula was, they took music and turned it into this sort of automotive assembly line. They were cranking out 10 songs a day in that studio, or more.
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 Mayer Hawthorne
I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.
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 Mayer Hawthorne
I grew up in Ann Arbor, about 25 miles west of Detroit. And when you grow up in that area, you get a healthy dose of Motown automatically.
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 Mayer Hawthorne