Thundercat put me on to George Duke.

If I have to be 'the experimental guy' or whatever, then I'll roll with it.

I'm not the kind of person who's always out at the club if I don't have to be. I like chilling. I think that comes across in my music.

Thundercat, specifically, is insane. I'm always surprised at the things he comes up with when we're jamming out together. I gotta try to keep up with him and his ideas, be able to respond without speaking, and come through with some more music. He challenges me to keep it musical and not so computer.

I definitely learned to communicate with other musicians better. I used to feel so intimidated by guys who can read notes, like, 'Oh my God, they're gonna think I'm not even gonna be able to sit at the table.' But I've come to see that a lot of these musicians don't know how to read music either, and that made me feel good.

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

I'm a geek, man.

I had the whole 'Ghostbusters' toy set with the firehouse and the car and everything. Sometimes I'd use my grandpa's camera and make little stop-motion cartoons with those toys - I was definitely a weird kid.

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

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.

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

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

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.

All of the Flying Lotus records are exploring similar themes: These questions in my mind about what's next and what's beyond.

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

I do think your environment really plays into how you create. I lived in San Francisco for a bit, and I felt like I lived in the Matrix - so my music had that paranoid-of-the-outside sound to it.

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.'

Sometimes I feel evil!

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.

George Clinton is the best storyteller in the world.

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.

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

People are not able to just make music anymore; we have to do things that don't necessarily make the art any better. But that's just how it is.

The Internet makes it possible for everyone to collaborate.

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

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

Kendrick is a true genius artist.

The producer role attracts introverts. Making music on your computer is so appealing to someone who just sits in their room all day.

When it comes to art in general now, we've become so aware of our influence. We know when people are listening, when people are watching. It's not healthy. We start creating with that in the background of our mind. I think it's ruined my mind.

With every album that I do, I try to feature a new instrument or sound.

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 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.

I get homesick driving to the grocery store.

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.

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 don't sit around listening to beats all day. There's so many producers, and so much of it is derivative.

I'm just a fan of art and culture.

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 first was introduced to really, I guess, underground electronic music when I was in middle school.

When I made '1983,' there were a bunch of tracks that were in the early drafts that didn't make it because they just sounded like tracks for rappers, and that's not really the sound I look for when I produce my own albums.

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.

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'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.

It's the old-school jazz mentality that I connect with the most. I dig the idea of the seeker, the guy who's always trying to figure out why he is doing music and trying to understand and make sense of his instrument in a world which deals with rigid instruction.

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

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.

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

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