Mixtapes are extremely important, especially for New York or North East artists. They allow you to be creative, to get feedback and criticism, but most of all, it gets your name out there. I would say about 90-100% of my success was down to the mixtapes.

Music kept me sane. I love music too much. I'm too passionate about music to let anything or anyone come in between me and my love.

I'm a firm believer in everything going digital, in a matter of years. I wanted to kind of be one of the pioneers, one of the people that jump on that bandwagon early.

Certain majors [lables] just know what they're doin', and got a good grip on the dynamic of what's happening, and some don't.

Even at my lowest I was sittin on my high stool.

I think Def Jam happened to be one of the labels that really didn't have a good grip on things that were going on. I'll say that - that's my political answer.

It sometimes becomes difficult to tell when you're even creating a buzz. You know, everything in this game, it so relies on timing that that part is really important, and it's something that everyone tries to pay a lot of attention to.