Someone like Jay-Z does have a timeless quality, but it's much different than ours. You can look back at something like "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors or the music that was on American Bandstand in the 1950s-'60s.

I let go usually by talking to many people in different areas, in different realms of life that make me look at what I'm dealing with as being small fries stuff, you know?

Don't anoint me when you can anoint yourself.

Music and art and culture is escapism, and escapism sometimes is healthy for people to get away from reality. The problem is when they stay there.

A visit to the hood through a record, or through a video, or through a film, is a lot safer than actually visiting the people in real life. It became a business model. It became a revenue engine that, you know, you can get to the hood without ever going there.

Maybe we need to look upon technologies and social networks as things that come out of us, not things that lead us. We can be on top of these things instead of them bein' on top of us as human beings.

I know I am judged unfairly by my physical characteristics and ostracized because of that so I say, "Yes, I'm a black man."