I personally feel the need to experience life and new music and ideas before I can sit down and start writing music again.

The reason why it is that strong, and why HipHop is so inbred, is that there is a very structured wheel, a very definable system on how to get paid in HipHop. Busta Rhymes is someone who took that road and sure enough got paid. As long people like him are allowed to continue to do that it wont change. There is a very specific sound and a very specific attitude, and it changes every year, but as long as you stay in there and keep doing it, and keep narrowing your scope, dressing the rigt ways etc. you get paid.

As for my store, most artists' sites send you to a third-party storefront like iTunes, whereas we're disseminating it ourselves. I was always uncomfortable with the thought of sending somebody who came to my site to buy something to some other store. It just occurred to me, "Why can't we do this?"

I remember when the big shift happened in 1996-97, when suddenly it dawned on the music community: 'We should license our music to commercials and sell out for all intents and purposes. It doesn't really matter.'

I always consider every album to be a snapshot.

If you think of any long-term artist that makes music throughout several decades, you would hope that it's autobiographical and a form of self-expression, and that's certainly how I approach my music.

I have a natural fear of anything that feels like celebrating my own past to an extent that doesn't allow me to continue to look forward. I don't know psychologically why it is, but I get a little uncomfortable with nostalgia.