Over the past five years, I've met several presidents, several secretaries of education ... and there is no plan. If you want to save your children, you're going to have to do it yourself. It's just us.

When I was growing up, kids used to talk about snitching... It never extended as a cultural norm outside of the gangsters.

When the safety of America is threatened, we will spend any amount of money. The real safety of our nation is preparing this next generation so that they can take our place [in] thinking and technology and democracy.

Education is the only billion dollar industry that tolerates abject failure.

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility'.

Movies portray men as tough guys.

If you raise a child, there's no time, you can't be a great parent.