I was surrounded by too many people who felt that they had a strong sense of entitlement. That I owed them something.

When I fell in love with hip-hop, there was a terminology at the time called "battling." All that was just battling with other artists, but after Tupac and those incidents when it spilled into the street and turned into a negative situation, battling turned into a beef. A whole new dynamic.

At first, my love was just to be in the studio and make the music and enjoy it when I hear it played back, but then the biggest thing for me was to see the response of the people. When you go out and see the energy in the crowd, it's incredible.

My past is my shadow, it follows me everywhere I go. Well, all those things come from when I had no other choice. They put my back against the wall. I do what I gotta do.

If I'm focused while I'm strokin I could change how you walk

Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.

When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip.