Music that was made in the 60s and 70s did come from a really soulful place. The seed for the songs written in the 90s were planted in those songs, even though they were samples.

Even if you're frustrated, how do you express yourself? There's no subculture like back in the day.

Somebody told me that if you wake up every day and do stuff that's easy, then you're doing the wrong thing. If you wake up every day and do stuff that's really hard and you manage to get through to people, then you're doing the right thing. They might have just fooled me by telling me that, but it worked. I think that's my philosophy.

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

I already feel that I am making a political statement by sticking around in music, when I am doing it so differently to everyone else.

If you're talking about coexisting and tolerance then you have to live by example, and you can't have shiny people all the time everywhere, which is what breeds that sort of thinking - this is better than this, that is better than that.

With homogenized culture, even if you feel frustrated, you'd have to write a Taylor Swift song to get heard.