I would say my relationships have always affected my music. Each one. I wrote most of my great songs, that I'm still using today, in 2008 when I had the worst heartbreak of my life with my first girlfriend. It inspired great music.

Football is the priority, even more than school. Art is frowned upon. I had to sneak music in.

I would say my relationships have always affected my music. Each one. I wrote most of my great songs, that I'm still using today, in 2008 when I had the worst heartbreak of my life with my first girlfriend. It inspired great music.

The people that are really from the hood - and I'm raising my hand right now, you can't see that - we wanna get out the hood. We don't want to go back. We don't want to gang bang, we don't wanna do none of that. We wanna make it out! Like Jay Z did. We should be billionaires and owning businesses and stuff like that.

I think you can see the evolution of me as an artist, and just becoming confident and coming into my own and becoming my own person throughout each mixtape. One thing I could learn from looking back at my old mixtapes, what I could learn from my old self, is just to keep that hunger and that drive and that feeling of an underdog and also the feeling of being a fan, still lookin up to people - you just want to impress them.

What came first I would say was the producing. I was a huge fan of Pharrell Williams and around that era, when I was in high school, the producers started getting recognition for all the dope beats: Dr. Dre, Timbaland, and all these dope producers.I also started rapping. I wanted to be Eminem, and that's why I still have those qualities in my music, and that's why I'm able to be so versatile - sing, rap whatever. But really my number one thing is singing.

I think my first hit was the first song I ever wrote. I actually wrote it in 2005 in college. The title of it is called "Ain't Ready”. It's just talkin about the relationship with a man and a woman, or even a woman and a woman; however you wanna look at it, and just that feeling of feeling like you're not ready for love and the other person is pushing for something that you don't want. I think that's something that a lot of people can relate to.