The freedom of speech and the freedom of press, it's just precious man, it really is.

I'm not one of those artists who doubts that they made dope-ass records. From the first record to now, each record has gotten better. I started dope, so I've just gotten doper and doper and dopest and super dope.

When you say you want to talk about racial justice, that`s not the same as I want to do something about racial justice. Saying I want to hold police accountable is doing something. Saying that I want to take money out of politics, big money, is doing something.

The motivation to me is to make money and not be dependent upon the shallow pool called the entertainment world or the rap world or the hip-hop world.

As a human being, as you go through the course of your day, you might wake up with the shittiest day, and by noon something f - king historically funny happens around the water cooler, and you're about to fart yourself you're laughing so hard. And then you might have to think about something seriously for a minute.

I don't think I'm more politically-based as much as socially-based. My grandmother died on February 29th, and she kept all of my magazine and newspaper scraps, every interview. I've been in the newspapers since I was about 15 - not for rapping, but for real substantive stuff I was doing in the community, organizing around gang violence in the schools. So I had already made my grandma proud before I was on TV. I've always been who I am.

I think the way the country has changed in part because of the presidency of Barack Obama, I think in part because of what we`ve - the violence that we have seen on our cell phones and our TV sets over the last couple of years. I think Black Lives Matter has helped to force these issues. Women like Sabrina Fulton. We`re having a different conversation in this country right now about race and what it means to really understand your experience is and my experience is.