Everybody who comes from the gangster life - they want what that man in the suburbs wants. Nice family. Nice house. Nice cars. Bills paid. Kids in school. Food on the table. Nothing more.

There's a lot of talent in South Central L.A., in Compton and Long Beach and Watts, and the city north of Pico pretty much sits back and waits for that talent to emerge and then steps in.

If you really think back to the culture or just black America before rap music took off, New York could have been Paris.

I love performing. I'll never get that out of me.

I know I ain't too old. I always think of my fans about 10 years older and 10 years younger than me.

That's always been my approach, to expose what's going on and what's not being said. I could go the selfish route, and probably make a whole lot more money, but that's not what it's about, it's about speaking for people who can't speak for themselves.

Everybody thinks the grass is greener on the other side. If you talk to most artists, they think they can play something, you know, "If I had stayed playing football in high school, if I had been doing basketball..." Everybody's got their fantasies and thinks the grass is greener. It's not. It's not.