This album is moments that I haven't done before, like just my voice and drums. What people call a rant - but put it next to just a drumbeat, and it cuts to the level of, like, Run-D.M.C. or KRS-One.

If I don't win, the award show loses credibility.

Because when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you're disrespectful to inspiration, and we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyonce album and they feel like it takes them to another place.

Any woman that you're in love with or that loves you is going to command a certain amount of, you know, energy. It's actually easier to focus, in some ways.

What's the main thing that makes magic magic? The fact that no one believes that it's possible.

Respect my trendsetting abilities. Once that happens, everyone wins.

I thank Marc Jacobs so much for giving me the opportunity to design a shoe for Louis Vuitton, but the thing that broke my heart most was when they said, 'You're finished. The shoe's finished.'