You've got the Wall Street situation, the sub-prime situation. You've got a black president. We've got wars. We've got unemployment. But the music doesn't reflect that. And I challenge anybody to show me a music that's on the radio that reflects that.

What's bad for the culture is wack rappers that get held in high regard like they're some great thing because it's the flavor of the month, but everybody knows they can't rap. I don't think it's hard, even for somebody who's not hip-hop, to know that that's not good. When you put them up against somebody that can really rhyme, you go, "Okay, I get it. This is what it should sound like."

With the invention of the blog and all this Internet stuff, everybody has an opinion; everybody has a voice. In fact, there was a time when the average person didn't have a voice so you had to pick an artist to speak for you.

...As an artist, you need the naysayers and the nonbelievers to add fuel to your creative fire.

I didn't really realize how big I was 'til I started to tour, because being in your own neighborhood, people don't actually give you full props.

It's like they want to shut rappers down. They want to silence us. The Supreme Court says it's OK for a white man to burn a cross in public. But nobody wants a black man to write a record about a cop killer.

A lot of times people would offer me movies and, because I'm a car freak, I'd look in a magazine and say, 'How much is this car? If you give me this car I'll show up and do the movie' I call 'em 'sports car flicks'.