I think that some people from other regions expect us to be like that so I think they overcompensate for that sometimes and they're victims to their own insecurity.

Hip-hop is about the human condition; it's about people's lives.

The way music reflects real life, the way that painstakingly, over the years, what I have said is really a metaphor for what's happening to America. It used to be about, or tried to be at the very beginning, about what was right. It has stopped being what was right for America; it started being about what was right for companies that are in control.

Scary rock n' roll bands had all the devilish imagery. But at the same time, it's not because they were devil worshippers, they were saying that society is run by devils. It was human society that created these things, they become the devils. This is what you worship. This money is what you worship. This idea is what you worship.

I'm not trying to sell pipe dreams to people. I'm not giving them some fake utopia. I'm not telling them it's easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But you don't fight the fights you can win, you fight the fights that need fighting. That's the most important part.

Because I know that the early Greeks and Romans and the early Europeans at that age did not see racism as we see it now - because racism was created to justify slavery to build the capital for capitalism - and back in the day they respected talent over race. We had an African Pope in the late 5th century, we had an African Emperor of Rome, and early church Fathers were black.

when God said "let there be light" I turned it the f-k off.