I think when people say 'real hip-hop,' they want it more buried in the streets. They want it more connected to the streets and the grime and the roughness of the streets. They don't want the fluff.

You know, I say in my lyrics, "Every word I write will be analyzed by somebody white." It's just that I know that this sh*t is just not gonna fall on deaf ears.

I think that a rap aficionado, the hardcore rap fan, will always go away from pop, in the same way a hardcore jazz fan will never think Kenny G is really a jazz artist. You gotta kind of know there's always going to be that purist who's going to be like if it ain't beats and rhymes, if there ain't a DJ, then that ain't Hip Hop.

I look at my career and I feel I have the potential to maybe mature into a Samuel Jackson-type older cat, and people will still respect me and say 'Yo, Ice-T was wild', into my old age. And why not? I don't necessarily think I'll be rapping in 10 years.

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.

When you hit the wall, it's how fast you come back.

You have the core hip-hop, which would just be beats and breaks, more something like what you hear with DJ Premier. Then you get into the more highly produced hip-hop, which is something like what DJ Khaled does. But at some point, it starts to get kind of pop.