Frank Dukes

“I grew up on hip-hop and crate-digging and those sensibilities are deeply ingrained in me.”

“As I change and grow, different things excite me and I just follow where that leads me.”

“My approach to making music has always been making ideas and developing them. Sometimes I develop them all the way by myself. The other part of development is I will work with my friends who are just some of the best producers in the world, give them an idea.”

“I don't really generate material specifically for the Kingsway Music Library. It's just a product of the way I work.”

“I try to create something that draws you in without overthinking it. Something that resonates with you automatically that you don't have to think about. That's what the best pop is about: Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Nirvana - these guys made some of the most authentic and popular music.”

“I love music with real instruments. I'm not one of those guys that's a purist about analog vs. digital, but I love the analog approach. Sonically, I connect to that.”

“I wanted to be a great producer so I studied great hip-hop producers, but also stuff beyond that: Phil Spector, David Axelrod, Gamble and Huff. They're equally as influential to me as Dilla, Premier, and Pete Rock.”

“Broken Clocks' is actually a song I produced for my boy River Tiber featuring my boy Daniel Caesar.”

“If you can make the best music ever but it requires bringing in a few different perspectives, I'd rather make the best music ever.”

“When you're producing, you're really just making a series of decisions.”

“I make so many ideas, it's impossible to finish every single one.”

“You can't just plug your guitar in your computer and make it sound like an old record.”

“I'm not one for the limelight I suppose.”

“The Kingsway Music Library was sort of a byproduct of all the creation I was doing. As creators, we kind of just create blindly sometimes and I couldn't physically see every idea through, so I created this ecosystem where I made the ideas available to people to download, to sample and to put their own twist on it.”

“I make popular music but I'm not necessarily a pop produce.”

“I'm just at home all the time wearing jogging pants.”

“Once '0 to 100' happened, it sort of spun this chain reaction - really the first big record that I was a part of. It was a big, life-changing thing for me.”

“Whether it's a huge hit or sold five copies, as long artistically and creatively I can stand by what I did, then I'll feel successful.”

“I'm definitely interested by a lot of things outside of music - technology, film, quantum physics - and I'm realizing that I can put my creativity into anything I kind of choose to.”

“I know people who have sampled gospel music, and then they go to clear the sample, and it's like, 'You can't take the Lord's music and make this.'”