I look at Large Professor as a big influence. I grew up with him and being able to grow up with him enabled me to meet Nas, Busta, Q-Tip and all these people I looked up to at the time. Even Large himself. He was a good friend but at the same time he was definitely someone I looked up to.

I went to acting school for like a year and ended up doing voiceovers and stuff. I could have done a lot more with it but at the time I really wasn't taking it seriously.

I was djing before I was rapping. I was calling myself Mike Geronimo and spelling it like Mike but he was just like spell it M-i-c. I was like that's ill cuz it stands out.

You're always going to need those folks that introduce certain things to the next generation and I fit in that sense.

I got a little criticism for working with Puff [Daddy] and I got some criticism for doing the special but you have to weigh the good with the bad. I got more of a good response than bad when I did those two things.

As an artist when you come into [hip hop] you don't know nothing really. You just know what you do and it's free of the influences of money, power and all these other things people learn about the further they get into it.

It used to be when a good record was about to drop you heard it out of every car and every kid with a boom box was playing it 3-4 weeks before it came out. Now it's not like that you just see ipods left and right and there's no anticipation factor. I have yet to see something drop with the anticipation that Illmatic had or that Ready 2 Die and Cuban Linx had. Those records had real anticipation factors.