Rapping is a vocal delivery, so you can do it without being part of hip-hop and not knowing what hip-hop is about.

I like crime movies where the crime is so incredible that, attractive as it seems, you don't wanna do it because it's just too dangerous.

You could be a Green Beret and a kid could jump out from behind a building and hit you with a rock. No matter how tough you become in the military, there's a way to die: there's nothing safe about it.

There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard, like Chuck D said.

Before rap came along, I was, actually, actively in the streets; getting in trouble, doing the wrong thing.

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.

You can't come out on a record dissing the system and be on a label that's connected to the system.