I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence

When I retire, I want to step away on a positive note. What you put out into the world comes back to you. You actually change the world with what you do. I want to put some good in the world.

You know, my goal, once I leave the music business, is like, 'Man, Lupe didn't lead us astray.' It comes directly from Islam: leading people astray is the worst thing you could do. Especially in perpetuity; like, your music continues to go on and live without you. That risk is too great for me; I'm gonna keep it positive.

The stuff that I make and the things that I talk about, you have to listen, so if the beat is doing too much, it's going to take you away. If the hook is too distracting, it's going to take you away. The hook just needs to be enough to get you from one verse to the next.

The rewards we get by being those weird guys going against the grain to me are way more massive than selling a million billion records. I like climbing mountains or going on undersea dives for whales and stuff like that.

You need to think about the system that you live in and the comforts that you have. But the comforts that you have that are causing the discomforts of a massive amount of people around the world.

I have people who want to pull me into specific projects in the community based on my music and on the mixtapes. It's like, it's the truth but I'm not trying to preach to you. Because who am I to say what's really right or wrong, or whether what I say is going to change anything? I don't take it too seriously; it's really whimsical.