The whole world is conscious. It's just that we become conscious at times, and you become conscious when you lose a parent, or just a loved one, period - a wife, a brother, you know. You wake up and say, "Man, it's real. I don't need this pimp gangster stuff anymore, I need something with a little more substance." And there is marketing for that.

Just black executives have a bias against older artists. We don't respect our elders. 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.

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

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

Teachers teach and do the world good, Kings just rule and most are never understood

You sleep with a man, that's your husband. So make sure before you lay down, you love him.

No [other rappers are on my level], none of them. Here, let me put it like this in the sky, there are a million stars, but when the sun appears, you see none of them. I am the sun.