I'm a cinephile. I love movies, I love film at every level. I'm a student of it. It informs me as does all art in my music, because there's stories, there's acts, there's moods, there's dynamics, there's moodiness, emotion. All of those things that play into a film. I think that could equally be said about music. It definitely informs me. Beats is stories.

To be honest I'm not going to sell dreams like everybody else does and say, "Sure, it can be changed." I don't want to seem like a pessimist, but nothing's getting better.

I have a very connected history with Bilal. I heard his demo years ago. I heard all of the magic instantly. He's a master at interpretation of song.

One thing the music industry has taught me is to manage my expectations.

Back in the days when I was a teenager, Before I had status and before I had a pager, You could find The Abstract listening to hip-hop, My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop, I said, well daddy don't you know that things go in cycles, The way that Bobby Brown is just ampin' like Michael, It's all expected, things are for the lookin', If you got the money, Quest is for the bookin'...

It's not just a struggle for blacks to be accepted by whites, but the other way around as well. A lot of people don't see that.

For me with art and all that stuff - I like abstraction. I like contortion. I mean, it's still truth. But it's truth through the center of the individual. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's fallacies or falsehoods. It just happens to be one perception of what's happening.