It had no affect on me whatsoever. Um... I consider Jay a very good friend of mine. I also consider Dame and Biggs very good friends of mine. With me not being a Roc-A-Fella artist, with me just being a friend of both and not being tied to them in the Roc-A-Fella situation, I was still able to maintain personal relationships with both of em.

I sat down with my long time business partner and Rap-A-Lot CEO James Prince to review the music that we had and quickly came up with an outstanding track list.

[Alejandro González Iñárritu] went from Birdman to this - these are incredible ledges that he's stepping out on in making these films [The Revenant]. I think his only threat for best director is Room, to be honest.

Know that I'm chosen, one of the few/Staying on top - at least, one up on you

The idea of watching an entire film basically from one person's perspective - and not even really from their perspective, but [it's] probably the most intimately shot film that's in any of these categories. If you're not familiar with Son of Saul, basically it's a film about a Jewish guy who's in concentration camp, but he helps dispose of the bodies after they leave the gas chamber. So, you watch the entire movie looking at Saul's face and looking at his interactions with people.

This is a very pivotal time in America and I think families are still reeling from events depicted in that movie [The Big Short ].

Well, the first thing I do is I try to listen to whatever rapping is already on the track. I listen for cadence and melody to see how the track's already been written, and to make sure that whatever flow or flows I decide to run with, or patterns or melodies that I decide to put into the song, that they're not already in there. Then I try to see if there's a different part of the subject matter that I can talk about.