You're always going to sound like yourself, but you can make really strong attempts to keep some similarities, but move away from what you did before for popularity's sake.

I'm most passionate about, you know, making everybody understand that we should all have equal access on this earth.

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.

One of the problems with hip hop is lack of infrastructure and not being able to control its own course. I don't like that hip hop is full of infantile 35-year-olds. Hip hop cannot afford to be lazy.

If you empty, you can be filled up with anything. It could be water or it could be gasoline.

As a late teenager, the punk movement pushed me further. In particular, the Clash, which happened to leak through the time of disco, showed me that there was this cross-cultural sound that could cut across genres and audiences. Like punk was to disco, rap music was a rebellion against R&B, which had adopted disco and made it worse.

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