I think it's not enough for us to extend the hand of love. I think it's important that that goes both ways. It's important also that we look at policies we need to change as well.

You see all these things that make you feel desperate or sad, but you realize changes can be made, and it doesn't take a lot of money on our part to make a change in people's lives.

I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it.

Anybody under the age of forty knows hip-hop, gospel and R&B pretty well, and it's all a part of what we consider to be 'black music.' There is a natural synergy between the three.

I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to be a better artist and I still [do]. I spend a lot of time focusing on my craft. If you're going to take your passion into something beyond just something for fun on the side, you got to spend a lot of time on it to be great, and then you've got to make smart decisions about who you collaborate with [and] where you live [to] put yourself in the right situations to meet the right people to catch those breaks.

If a few people decide not to buy my album it's really not going to change my life that much.

It's important for us to fight for certain changes that need to happen. And one of those issues that I really care about is education. But also another one is incarceration.