I'm competitive in that I would like to outsell my last record.

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 always been a person that, if I'm with a woman, she's in the picture.

It really really sunk into me when I went to Europe and they take rap so much more serious than we do here. That was the first time I ever heard rap considered folk music. And sometimes somebody will make you understand like, "Hey, what you doin' is serious, don't play it lightly 'cause it's changin' my life."

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.

I think all music - not just rap - has fallen into this very diluted, delusional state, where everyone's singing about money and having cars, and having all this fun; when really, people are losing their homes.

One of the things about powerful people is they have the ability to make it look easy.