Anderson Paak

“I don't think there's anybody that has such a keen sense of vocal production and attention to detail as Dre.”

“My mom was born in Korea - Seoul, Korea, during the '50s, '51. She was abandoned; her and my uncle were abandoned. My grandfather was a Seabee and adopted my mom and my uncle, and brought them to Compton in the '50s. That's where she was raised.”

“I don't know many artists who've come out of Beverly Hills, y'know? You need that struggle.”

“I'd been watching documentaries about early rock where white artists took 'race records' from blues and soul musicians to achieve mass appeal. I wanted to flip that and do an EP covering only white artists.”

“I got invited to work on Dre's 'Compton' project.”

“I used to work with mentally disabled people when I was 18 or 19, changing diapers and catheters. I was working, like, 16 hour night shifts, having to distribute meds and go capture people who would break out of the house. Sometimes they'd have seizures, and we'd have to rush them to the hospital. That was an interesting time, very humbling.”

“As an artist, you're taking your experiences and placing them into your art. So the more experiences you have, the richer your art and more people can relate to it.”

“I grew up in Oxnard, CA, and I went to a church called St. Paul, where I was playing drums. My mom had a strawberry company. The whole town of Oxnard is basically built on produce, and more particularly, strawberries.”

“I think there's a void for some authentic soul music with an edge. I think there's some people who grew up with Motown and Stevie Wonder that still can appreciate Future, Drake, and all these different things, too, but there shouldn't be a void for those people, as well.”

“My mom eventually got out to Oxnard and started a produce company and was in the strawberry business. My pops was out of the picture by the time I was 7.”

“I wanna do a song with Adele! Nobody gets Adele as a feature, so maybe I can. I hope she knows who I am!”

“I had a project called 'Cover Art,' which was the first project I did under the new name Anderson .Paak. I went through this process where I was recording new music for about six months straight.”

“It would feel like a smack in the face to sign with any label outside of Dre's. He took a risk on me, and that means everything.”

“Life got very good - we went from living in a one-bedroom apartment to a five-bedroom mansion by the time I was in high school. I had everything I wanted growing up, though all I wanted was music stuff - drums, a PC, turntables.”

“I'm at my best when I'm talking about relationships, talking about women, talking about situations and stories.”

“There's quite a few artists that didn't pop off until they were a little older - Rick James being one.”

“Growing up in a house where there was a lot of different musical influences - my mom listens to soul stuff and Top 40, my sisters would listen to hip-hop - and the church, I grew up listening to a lot of gospel stuff. So I think that plays a role in how I make music now because my music has a lot of range. I don't just do one thing.”

“A lot of Knxwledge's instrumentals just brought out this tone and swagger that I had played with before but had never really pinpointed before on my Anderson .Paak stuff. But then it just came so easily.”

“I learned a lot from working with and watching Knxwledge, seeing how he produces non-stop. He doesn't dwell too long on stuff. He's very simple, using only about two or three elements. I like that in production. Sometimes it doesn't take more than three drums, a melody, the vocal, looping a sample or whatever, just as minimal as possible.”

“I just want people to be affected by the music. I'm really affected by my surroundings and put everything in my music - what I'm not getting and what I desire. I want it to be uncompromised... almost a spiritual thing.”