Zaytoven

“I approached my career like a rapper. I would go to every open mic, every studio session, bringing my beats. I would almost do exactly what a rapper would do to get on.”

“I have a church background. I've been playing piano and keyboard and organ all my life in church.”

“I started with the organ and drums, and I later got into drum machines as a teenager.”

“I tell people that it's one thing to have the gift and the talent and work hard but another thing to have the favor of God in making it all work, and I think all those are factors.”

“When I think about 'Beast Mode,' that's what I think about. I don't think about just a hard project; they just created some art together.”

“You listen to something like 'Beast Mode,' and it's almost like looking at a pretty painting.”

“I know it sounds funny coming from me, 'cause I produced it, but that's one of my favorite bodies of work. That's what 'Beast Mode' was when it came out and still is.”

“I'm content with what I've got from the industry, even though sometimes it seems like I might not get the proper credit.”

“I'm the type of guy where, if I see, like, 20 songs, I don't even wanna listen to one of 'em 'cause it's too much.”

“I use a lot of piano riffs in my production, and someone who I was working with said that I played so good that it sound like Beethoven.”

“It always surprises me and always makes me proud when I see people that I know I worked with at the house in the basement on TV being superstars.”

“The music business, a lot of times, has a big finesse mentality to it.”

“There's no record that you done heard me produce that I spent more than ten minutes on.”

“When Zaytoven and Future are working together, then Future's not working on no other tracks, and Zaytoven's not making no beats for nobody but Future.”

“Al Nuke is almost like a real brother to me. Our chemistry is crazy because we're like night and day, but we blend so well.”

“I was listening to Young Jeezy and Shawty Red, and to me, the trap music they had was something special.”

“When my dad retired, he moved to Georgia, but I stayed in California. I was in San Francisco: that's where I first went from being a musician to making beats and producing. I was 18, 19. It started going pretty good for me out there in California, so I stayed in SF while my parents moved to Georgia.”

“I've been doing two things my whole life: I've been cuttin' hair, and I've been playing the organ at church. Those two things are what I looked at as my life: this is how I'm gonna make my money, this is how I'm gonna make my living... It helped me to be stable in what I do.”

“We did 'Bricks' and 'Ridiculous' all in one day. Gucci came here, like, 8 in the morning - we were done 4 the morning the next day.”

“Music is about feeling.”