L. A. Reid Quotes

World events can shape culture. Music is either a soundtrack for or a narration of changing times. And who knows how that’s going to go?

We don’t sign an artist to fill a void, ever. I’ll never find a Taylor Swift. You can’t find a new Madonna, you cannot find a Prince, a Bob Marley, a John Lennon. You won’t find another Kanye West. We simply deal with people as they walk in, and we say we either love them or we don’t.

The kids I talk to are convinced their generation will make the best music. And the greatest artists have yet to be discovered. I walk around with that thought every day.

The deepest and most sincere feeling I get is when I meet an artist and they have that steel in their eyes and they have that fire and that passion and all they want is to be a star and to hear themselves on the radio.

Popular music has always been rooted in the blues, whether it’s Adele or Led Zeppelin or Sam Cooke. It’s just the beat that changes.

Listen, we’re still selling stardom. That doesn’t go away because MTV decides they can’t play videos or they want to program themselves more as a traditional T.V. station. Vevo and YouTube are like MTV online, and on demand.