I never know if the person I'm shaking hands with is coming to kill me. That's something you have to live with when you cross the lines.

AIDS is such a scary thing and it's also the kind of thing that you think won't happen to you. It can happen to you and it's deadly serious.

A lot of people play single to work some angle. I'm always about keeping it real. If that's how I'm living, that's how I'm living.

I was doing the wrong thing, at the time I thought I was doing the right thing. It's like if you're dealing with somebody who is high on drugs, they can look back at it and say, "Wow, I was destroying myself." But during the period, they think they're doing the right thing. You just have to let the smoke clear so you can see the whole picture.

I've been pulled out of my nice new car and laid out in the street by the police, interrogated and then have them get in the car and roll off leaving me lying in the street without even saying 'Get up.' The humiliation that they can put on a black man because they determine that you ain't got the money.

I've never been competitive with anybody but myself.

If you really listen to my music my music is more like stories than party records. I never made party records.