You can go raise the money outside of the industry, and then what you're doing is fighting with your money to get back into the industry, or for them to use your money instead of their own. So, you got to figure out how to do it within the flow of the industry.

I think hip-hop has changed. When I first came out, hip-hop was more of a kind of way to learn about new places, new things. What are kids doing on the East coast, what are kids doing here. Then it left that and is like a party mode. I think it's going back to people wanting to get messages and wanting to learn things from the music.

I think when hip hop first started, people were open to it, and groups like Public Enemy and there was groups like Poor Righteous Teachers and all these people who were spitting a lot of knowledge, a lot of history, questioning a lot of societal barriers was starting to be super popular.

Well, for the transition from rapper to actor, I was fortunate that director John Singleton pursued me for about two years to be in Boyz 'N the Hood. I really wasn't even thinking about acting at the time, since I was singularly focused on being the best rapper in the world. So, that was really a blessing, because I wasn't really taking him seriously.

I'm not the type of actor who is trying to do a whole bunch of different shit, you know what I mean?

There's things people say in the barbershop they won't even say in their own living room, because it's just one of those zones where nobody's going to judge you too much about your dumb opinion.

Sometimes you got to start somewhere. And it's cool, as long as where you start is not where you plan on finishing.