The Producer

That's pretty cool. Do you get to do that often?
I've been very blessed in my path and my journey. This trek of music has landed me in a lot very interesting places. I have to say I'm very thankful. Its not just me being able to make those choices, it's the fact that people have given me such pleasurable responsibility to make music and just be creative. And they just let me go. There are no holds on what it is that I want to do. Things have been great in that way.

The Strokes are a rock band and Santogold is more electronic and you are better known as a hip-hop producer. Why do you think that music fans are more open to migrating from genre to genre and not be stuck listening to one type of music?
N.E.R.D. has always been a melting pot of things that we found interesting, just different textures of sounds and different frequencies, and mixing different colors of chord progression. And it's always been because we weren't strictly this or strictly that. We just made experimental music that we liked. And what I liked about it and what makes me very proud is that we were one of the first few groups to represent the iPod mentality.

What do you think is different about the kids that are now growing up listening to iPods?
The iPod is teaching people that radio doesn't dictate what's going on. Sales don't necessarily dictate what's going on. Kids like what they like. They buy what they buy. And they kind of don't care what anyone else thinks. The program director is now the kid on his MP3 player, downloading and putting on his iPod or Zune player or whatever. It's that time when kids are making their own decisions, they listen to all kinds of music, they wear all kinds of clothes. There are people that are genre-specific and its cool 'cause you get to go into their world and see what it is, all the rules of basic engagement. But for the most, most kids just like certain things, they're attracted to it and they learn about it. And that's it. They don't care.

What's on your iPod?
I had Ahmir (Khalib Thompson) from the Roots make me an iPod and Q-Tip make me an iPod. (British jazz DJ) Gilles Peterson still owes me one. Usually what I have them do is put like obscure jazz records, old soul records and funk records and rock records that I couldn't get my hands on. I don't have a huge collection, I just kind of like what I like.

With the Neptunes, and Timbaland and Mark Ronson, producers are now more visible in the music scene. Why is that?
I think what's most important is that the music is right. That's all. And that kids get entertained. It's all that really matters.

You've got to explain to me this thing about growing some skin to cover your tattoos.
I was kidding. It was on CNN News, so I was just talking about something that I had seen on the news.