I know now it's a hashtag and people have various feelings about it, but really if you look at all black art, even in hip-hop, it's all about that I exist and these are my feelings and this is what I feel about the world. It's always been an undercurrent.

One of the things that's really the cornerstone of '90s hip-hop is sampling.

If you're black living in the community and you want to change things, there are going to be things that happen. That's true of anybody. I mean you could use celebrity as a similar metaphor.

That's one thing that you notice in New York that you don't notice in LA is how much music is all over the place.

Harlem is filled with moments of history.

I was just really happy to see Barry [Jenkins] and Mahershala [Ali] and everyone else involved with "Moonlight" get their moment.

The Academy Awards for people in Hollywood is like the Super Bowl, the presidential inauguration and winning the NBA championship rolled up into one.