When you grow up and you start having all these problems and your little sister gets pregnant, you're dealing with all these money problems and bills and the company, you ain't going to want to talk about that. Or maybe you will, but me personally, I just can't do that.

A lot of people have that story that they used to sell crack or shoot people; that's nothing new. But honestly, if that was me, I probably still wouldn't be doing that because it's so many people that's doing that. It just gets old when you hear a million raps about how many ways I could shoot you. So I just try to be more creative and come with something new because I actually care about the music.

I'll step in an airport just now, and people will recognize me. I'm in Harlem on 144th and whatever, and people are coming up to me like, "What's up, Chamillionaire?" And seeing it grow is, nothing turning into something, that feeling is a really good feeling.

When I get home and turn on the radio, I hear songs that are new to me, but to everybody else they're old. I try to keep the music fresh in my head.

If you're a humble person, and you walk in, and you start talking, people are going to be able to tell. You can't fake it.

I might tell a story about somebody else, but I don't sit there and do a story about somebody snitching on me selling coke because people know I didn't sell coke. So I just try to keep it real but still try to do it in a creative way.

All the carbon copies, the stuff that the industry puts together, it's not selling if you pay attention and look at the charts. The stuff that they put together, these hits that just go out, it doesn't sell. It doesn't have a core fan base of fans that dedicatedly watch their life. It's just a song, another song, another hit song, a one-hit wonder. It doesn't sell. It doesn't last.