I don't believe that everybody is out of some kind of cookie cutter, so the thing that protects me is always being level with myself, even to myself.

My daughter's 19. I'm not asking her to develop as an artist. I'm just asking her to develop as a full person, human being.

My advice to young people is ask older people questions and don't be afraid.

We were coming out of the black community with this thing called rap music, which was basically black men yelling at the top of their lungs about what we liked and what we didn't like. It was disturbing to the status quo. It really shook things up. And those in power didn't know what to make of us, but they knew that we had to be silenced, stopped in any way from expressing our outrage.

For a long period of time, the media covered rap music and hip hop the same way they cover a lot of black people, people of color, you know, the bad news happens to be news. They used to have these little stupid colloquialisms that pop up like, "You know what? No news is bad news!" They trick the masses into thinking that any news is great for you. And I just think that's a piece of crap.

Getting on the road and driving along a road at night, or even in the daytime and seeing the oceans or whatever, is always liberating.

Try to do your best to look people in the eye and talk to them without a gadget being in between you all the time.