Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.

If I was to stop making music tomorrow doesn't mean suddenly there is this gap. You don't get elected. The people decide where you are. Whether I'm here or not, if they want you to be at the top then the people will move me out the way.

I ain't lookin' at you dudes -I'm lookin' past you.

On the night he died - he was twenty-seven - Basquiat had been planning to see a Run-DMC show. When people asked him what his art was about, he'd hit them with the same three words: "Royalty, heroism, and the streets.

Cough up a lung where I'm from marcy son, aint nothin nice

I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house.

My thing is related to who I am as a person. The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.