Like my little sister and brother, I always play them my music because I want people like them to be able to relate to my music. They always know what's going on; they're up on what's new. For me, when they hear my music and they like it, I'm on the right track.

Sometimes, when you grow up in one of these poverty-stricken neighborhoods where the educational system isn't the best, you don't realize that you have any choices. Often, kids don't appreciate the choices available, as if it's either the street or nothing. I want them to understand that reality is what's relative to you, and that you can make choices that allow you to create a new reality for yourself.

I feel like I've reached a point where music has become just as much a priority to me as my acting, and I'm glad to feel that way.

I definitely, at times, felt the pressures of life similar to the pressures anyone would feel growing up. The only difference was that maybe more people were aware of mine. But, if anything, I changed the pressure from negative to positive. So, instead of thinking everybody wanted to see me fail, I decided everybody wanted to see me win, since I wanted to see myself win.

You should never look at somebody and say, 'I wish I had their life,' because you never really know what struggles they're going through.

If there's a certain song that I want to reach a certain person or certain type of person, that's when I play it for people.

We need to stop separating ourselves by how dark or how light we are.