I come from a generation where you put the art out and had the luxury to sit back and watch the world deconstruct it, and that was valued. Unfortunately now the work lives in a weird context.

There's a bit of hope that a song can be about anything. If you want to write a song about anything, you can, and you don't have to put it through the process of having it be trendy or cool or generic pop or these types.

I think people were genuinely addicted to hip hop in the 90s, addicted to the idea of empowerment. I think it came from [the fact that] the rappers in the 90s, their parents coming from the 70s, had such a rich variety of records to sample.

What's wrong with hip-hop [is that] it became so one-dimensional; it became like a businessman thing. It's run out of creativity. It went so far off about making money that now everyone can do it.

Whoever's inside is inside; whoever's out is out.

What really drives me mad about art is that, in America, the only thing you can do is to take it apart.

That divide between the rich and poor is so crazy, because even white kids are suffering now.