We used to have MTV and all these ways we can show our videos, and it was these rap shows, and it was everything. And then it became not cool to be conscious; it became cool to just hang out. Escapism rap became the norm. And, when I say "escapism rap", I mean getting high, get your cars, get your money, get your jewelry, go to the club, have your women, and it just became all about escaping your reality and not making your reality better on a real tip; not just on the have fun tip.

I'm not actually from Compton - I'm from South Central Los Angeles, and my father still lives in the same house I grew up in, so I'm there all the time.

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.

People wanted to have fun more than they wanted to learn from their music, and that's where the shift started to happen.

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.

Any time there's racism somewhere in sports, we should get it out of there because sports is a place where everything's supposed to be fair.

I go light on breakfast. Sometimes it's a yogurt, but a lot of times it's leftovers from one of my wife's dinners.