The urgency for me is to hurry up and become visible enough to either influence or shame other artists or corporations into understanding that there needs to be an equal starting block. You can't rush to make the changes. The rush that I have is to change the mindset of the people who can actually influence the situation in developed countries and in under - developed countries ... and not all under-developed countries need to develop. Maybe they just need to learn and be re - given the tools to understand how to use the land that they live on.

Music critics think of lyrics first and don't consider melody but so many songs are lyrically depressing but musically great, and that's why they become classics.

We live in an era of consumerism and it's all about desire-based consumerism and it has nothing to do with things we actually need.

Compassion can change a lot of things, including the world. Young people especially need to know that, because they're the future.

Salsa, classic rock, soul music, jazz... all of that was a part of my education in making hip-hop music.

We develop social systems for the handicapped, but when you're handicapped in your mind, society doesn't handle those situations well. I think we don't recognize or acknowledge the power of messages and how deeply affected we all are by the messages we receive from the media.

America's biggest export is media and I think that's a positive thing.