Corporations have steered the industry into what it wants, and a lot of times they will make artists record what it wants or to make songs talk to who they want to talk to. But sometimes the heart and the head have to be able to talk and deal with a situation that's evident.

Try to find like-minded people. Don't choose your friends based on the outside, choose your friends based on your similar views or something that you can learn from.

I'm not a U.S. citizen. I mean, I'm an earth-izen. Borderline policies are crap to me.

If you want to speak about different ethnicities and diversity, rap and hip-hop are all over the planet. Every country, from Turkey to Australia, now has tons of hip-hop artists. The music and artistry have moved way faster than the corporatization of the music. You do need organization and opportunity for these artists to express themselves, and I don't think it has to come from a corporate co-signing.

When music turned into being like candy - what people don't realize is, yes it's candy, but candy has long-term effects if you're just eatin' it as your main meal. And that's a problem, 'cause if you got music that keeps comin' at you, that keeps coming like a piranha, coming and rippin' at your soul, it's like yeah, I'm takin' this in, but there's not much of me left. Then you'll be lookin' for something outside of music to satisfy you, or take you away.

If you have no soul you can gut it out. You know, like a marionette, you'll just follow what seems to actually give you whatever you ain't got.

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.