When I write, it's intimate. I write in the car, and I don't even hear, like, ambulances driving past me because I'm in my car, listening to the music, writing. I record in an attic with no booth. It's not like I'm in the dark with candles, but it's like a house, a home, and I record like that. I think that plays into the music.

I don't really get the same kinda romance that I would get from, like, jazz. And even to a lesser extent to rock 'n roll. Rock 'n roll has a romance to it - how can I put it? A very vulgar romance, but still a romance; whereas hip hop has more facade.

My approach is I put God first; I say "God willing" all the time. The only way things will change is with God. So knowing that I can't really change anything, I'm just going to satire it.

I'm not in competition with nobody. I want to make good music for my fans who want it, who enjoy it, who learn something from it. And that's what it is.

I have yet to see someone attack Obama over his report card. A lot of people I talk to from both sides of the fence are like, 'Well, what about this economy? What about these incidents?' There are still no answers except time, but time is the answer for everything.

How can land be owned by another man. Warns one can not steal what was given as a gift. Is the sky owned by birds and the rivers owned by fish.

It's really about taking something inherently negative, and starting with the word loser, starting with something that's negative, and changing it into something that's positive, redefining it, but doing it in a certain way, how - like I would say when I look out at the world and you see it's dark and it's just overbearing and every day is depressed, depressed, depressed. What it took was to change my perspective a little bit. Not to change the world, to change my perspective.