I can't expect rappers to be politicized when Americans are not socially motivated enough to care about their own lives and public policy as much as they were even 20 years ago. But I'm compelled to make the music I make regardless.

Our feelings can be hurt, but you can take a yoga class, you can pray, you can play some basketball - you can figure out things for your hurt feelings.

I'm just seeing as I grow older, and hopefully wiser, that a lot of things I see from a race perspective are class problems too, so I should be advocating for all.

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.

My rap comes from a sociological standpoint rather than picking a particular side or dogma or ideology. I just want people to be free to do what they want, as long as they don't harm others.

Saying I want to pay women a fair wage is doing something and saying young black people deserve not to be called super predators but to be engaged from an economic standpoint that gives them an equal opportunity says doing something.I`m tired of talking.

The futile and exhausting existence of a purgatory-like law enforcement system.