I was an avowed professional revolutionary by the time I was 15.

I lived in Detroit until I was six. My older sister was living with us, and she listened to the Ohio Players and Stevie Wonder, so I grew up listening to stuff like that.

When my daughter was born, that was the first time I cried from happiness.

A lot of people heard about gin and juice for the first time from Snoop Dogg, but it was nothing new in rap music, and it was nothing new in the black community.

Becoming a father made me a lot more sentimental than I ever was before. I never cried at movies before I became a parent. I feel music more intensely. I think of my political ideas as ideas about how I want to interact with other human beings as opposed to abstract theories about how the world should be.

Rappers are usually rapping about knowledge they think people need to get by in the world. If there's no movement that gives the idea that the knowledge people need is how to take over the system, what they see is that people need to know how to hustle; people need to know how to survive.

I wanted to be part of changing the world. I don't want to just stand by and watch it be however it is.