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.

I always was like, "Yo, I'm here, I might as well get what I could take."

Sometimes when you're relegated to your neighborhood, you forget that there's more important things than your neighborhood going on out in the world. And that just gave me a chance to see how life could be. And it gave me a chance to interact with everybody, not just black people or Mexicans. It made me just a little more worldly.

Success really comes down to the product, not to me, my personality, or what club I'm seen going into or coming out of. None of that matters. What's important is whether or not people feel like they wasted their time or money when they pay for a movie or a CD.

I think when somebody goes to the movies and they spend their money and they take the girl out, the family, they want to have a good time. You don't always want to be hit over the head with history or how bad society is.

I'm always kind of off to the next movie, and focused on making sure that the one I'm currently working on is as good as the one that's already on TV.

My son, O'Shea. He looks like me, and he can rhyme.