If you're a conscious rap artist and you're worried about Billboard charts, you're gonna have a problem.

We [black people] don't respect our elders. Besides artists, we don't respect Frederick Douglass. We don't respect Martin Luther King. You look at every Martin Luther King Boulevard out here, and it's a crack block. That's not because of white people. That's because of black leadership. We just have that problem, and it's something that I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to conquer.

I make intelligence cool. I make spirituality cool. If we can make one's devotion to God cool, then I think I did a great thing. I can rest in peace.

Rap is something you do Hip Hop is something you live

Hip-hoppers are not interpreting what hip-hop is, and when we do interpret it, we interpret it as something immature, unorganized, and outlaw.

When I say hip-hoppers, I mean black, white, Asian, Latino, Chicano, everybody. Everybody. Hip-hop has united all races. Hip-hop has formed a platform for all people, religions, and occupations to meet on something. We all have a platform to meet on now, due to hip-hop. That, to me, is beyond music. That is just a brilliant, brilliant thing.

If we have power to degrade an entire society, then we also have the power to uplift it.