I don't listen to nothing while I'm in the studio, because I don't want to be influenced by anybody else.

They thought we were just basically keeping ourselves underground on purpose. And it was just strange for people to approach music that way. And for rap, trying to get recognition, and be seen as a regular form of music like anything else. I mean, the Soul, R&B, Rock 'N Roll, they would dis the hell out of rap when it first came out.

If you give anybody the chance, they can always make a decent human being out of themselves. It's the people that don't have a chance, that we look down at like they're monsters or they're animals or that they want something different than the rest of us.

I know that there are obstacles; I know that there are hills to climb, I know there were people before me that made my journey easier and there are people behind me that I have made the journey easier for.

We'll burn your store right down to a crisp.

Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out. They don't want to and they don't have the means to sustain it. That's where my heart is and that's what I think about all the time.

My thing is, I know kids cuss, they do their thing, but I tell my kids, 'Don't do it in earshot of any adults, or you're in trouble.'