Trying to separate myself from my instincts of pessimism and cut out and define what it is that I really do love, what I'm here to be, why I'm here, and what I think is worth being alive for and fighting for. And those things change, but I think that that's something I am always chasing.

I do these records. All of these ideas that I have, that I put out there, that inspire me to write, are a purging in a lot of ways. I have to expel them in order for myself to walk around and actually smile and be a regular, or a living, person.

I'm not really one of these people who's been known for particularly hopeful sentiments.

Maybe my great struggle, and it's probably not anything different from too many other people, but it certainly is what drives the music, is a hugely internal one.

If you ask me what people want from me, they would probably just want me to be true to what I'm doing.

The advancement of style is the cornerstone of hip hop. There is no correct or conservative way to make rap music. Rap is and must remain the answer, the alternative, to the conservative approach of making music.

I like being a rapper and cursing and getting paid. But at some point I feel like I'm going to be an old angry ass man, who is going to run the school board or city council.