The thing is with hip-hop, it has its waves and the waves crash against the beach and the new waves come in. So to stay relevant you have to roll with that.

Run DMC brought us out of that underground-only feel. They brought rap above ground and made it respectable as an art form to mainstream music.

I like to tell the streets what the political climate is, and I like to tell any politicians that's listening what the streets think. And sometimes people get nicked up and bruised up, but I usually have a lot of good medicine for that.

Never question the size of Ice Cube's balls!

As far as producing, once we started shooting, I soon realized where the critical decisions about the movies were really being made, and it wasn't on the set. They were being made in the production meetings. That's where producing a movie happens. And that's where I wanted to be. I didn't just want to be a piece, a pawn being played. I wanted to take part in the creative process, and that's how I sort of got introduced to the idea.

I won't lay down my principles for any kind of recognition or any kind of position or trying to be more famous. It's just not in me. I'd rather be a man. And then to have all this crazy stuff on my conscience.

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.