As a conscious rap artist, you should not want to be in a gangster market. You should be trying to establish your own market, create a place where you can be yourself and make some money and feed your family.

The single most important contribution that I can offer, the strengthening of people's spirit and soul, the strengthening of families, the unity of a husband and a wife. To me, that's most important. Without that, we have nothing. If a son doesn't respect a father, if a child doesn't respect a parent, then we're lost.

If the society that we're talking about is a society that starts wars all over the world, degrades indigenous cultures, is misogynistic in itself, if that's the society we're talking about, then it's not a bad thing if hip-hop did degrade that society.

Hip is the knowledge and Hop is the movement.

Real men are real friends, showing their real commitment.

If you're true to the upliftment of people and the unity of people, raising the self-worth of people, then you live within your means. But the problem is that we're looking at the grass on the other side, saying, "That's greener. I want to be in the thug market, but I want to be a conscious rap artist." It doesn't work like that.

It's just hypocrisy on hip-hop's part to cry racial profiling when your race is on TV acting like fools.