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.

You can't take anything with you. So I don't understand this whole psychotic area of greed, I don't get it.

Money is created by a machine... but you can't really create respect with a machine.

I don't have any exteriors that would actually put me into some kind of different air that would actually intimidate somebody to stay away from me.

Rap is supposed to be about keeping it real and not relinquishing your roots in the community. Without that, it's just posturing. Somebody who claims to speak for the 'hood don't need no private jet.

When somebody greedily comes along and thinks that they gonna snatch everything, and you have so many people that have not, the passion that drives me is trying to make them understand that they have to share. So, my art reflects that; the whole reason I do what I do reflects that.

I think traveling the world has helped to keep Public Enemy alive. We've never solely depended on the United States.