Ignorance is a poison and knowledge will nourish.

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.

I think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital "H," and as one word. It's the name of our black people culture, and it's the name of our identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that's slavery, because you're talking about people's souls. To me, that's the biggest problem.

Stop the negativity and control our creativity

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

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.

The single most important lesson I learned is that black people are the cause of black people's demise.