Success is a very dangerous thing and I think we have to be very careful about when we dictate what success is for somebody else. Because you don't know what it's like.

I have a lot of fans in the Tea Party, and they disagree with me vehemently. But they're fans, so we meet and connect and talk, so I'm open to everything.

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.

I don't mind payin' for the police and for streets and sanitation, or road work, bridges, trains, food subsidies and welfare. But I don't wanna pay for bombs to fight proxy wars in the middle of nowhere against enemies in the night.

I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep. I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down.

First of all, you are not really that supreme.

Faced with the way the system does you in the 'hood sometimes, if you don't literally get out, your chances are slim. You'll definitely die mentally. You'll pretty much die physically.