When you do an album about Africa, you can't be too superficial.

I find it very fascinating that one person or a group of people can get together as a choir and come up with a song that ends up inspiring people to create emotions, love and togetherness. Communication, which comes from this idea that sparks off of humanity and becomes something that is cherished and loved by the people, is very fascinating to me.

Music is an expression of what's inside of you. And that's how I make music.

I love hip-hop music, ... It's rebel music is how I like to speak about it. Hip-hop and reggae come from the same community as far as class...they both come from the bottom of society.

Everyone is related to Africa; everyone comes from Africa. We are all distant relatives.

The greatest thing to me about Obama is not the individual, it does not have to do with Obama himself - it's really about the people who have elected Obama. It demonstrates that people are ready for change, and I think Obama knows that, because he really came up from the people, the young generation especially. He motivated a lot of African Americans who never voted before to go and vote.

Nas is someone who can communicate with the streets and can still keep it real in terms of being human, he doesn't try to be this super perfect person, but has respect for his history and for his ancestors and for spirituality. So Nas always displayed that in his music, while at the same time keeping it hard and something that you can relate to.