When I listen to great music, the first thing I wonder is what people were saying when this came out of the speakers in the studio. I want to know what happened when they played it and said, "This is the one!"

Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.

Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.

In the end, you can't censor the truth, especially when it comes packaged in hot music.

No matter where you go you are what you are player and you can try to change but that's just the top layer man you was who you was before you got here

I'm trying to tell the story in the most clear, concise, and truthful way, taking those everyday words and phrases and capturing them in a way that they become something else.