When you're a producer on top of that, just havin' a beat that's hot is not enough. Now you know your sound, 'cause you've been workin' on your sound for so long, and now you're extra picky. You might do a beat that's ill, that the average rapper would pay big money to get on, but you don't wanna do it because you're like, "Ehhh... it's not what I'm looking for, it's not what I'm goin' for." So you're extra picky.

I truly believe that I make my path and I set my course, and where I land, at the end of the day, or the end of my career, [is] because of me. Of course, you get help along the way, and cosigns and management and opportunities and things like that but overall, the ball is in your court basically.

I worked in ad sales. I would call up local businesses and try to get them to buy ads in the paper. The whole time, I felt like I was just scamming people.

I just feel like, with rappers, there's so much complacency. It's like, 'Oh, I'm a rapper. I'm successful. I make money. That's all that matters.' But there's a lot of stuff going on in the world. Whether or not you're aware of it, it's happening.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

When you're a rapper, just a rapper, you have to kind of settle for whatever comes your way - if a beat is hot, you wanna rap on it, period.

I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.