I'm not going to try and change how people perceive me. I think it's important to be a contradiction. People are contradictions; everyone has contradictions. So I don't expect anyone to look at me differently.

Sometimes you know about a job four months in advance. Sometimes you know about a job four days in advance. It's all different, and my thing is just to try to stay prepared. It's like being a boxer. You never know when you're going to get your next fight, so you have to just stay in shape, mentally and physically and creatively.

Like any family, like any group - the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, EPMD, Public Enemy - they've had bumps in the road. I just think that because A Tribe Called Quest is so precious to fans, they were concerned about unveiling some of those things.

At the end of the day, my sole goal, when I go into any scene, is to try to be as honest as I possibly can, and then everything else is second. The most important thing for me is to just be as honest as I possibly can.

So to compare the Beatles, obviously the Beatles are the Beatles, but in hip-hop terms, Tribe is the Beatles. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are the Beatles. Big Daddy Kane is Jimi Hendrix. It means that much to people that grew up with it.

I'm always gonna be an actor, so I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do next. I would love to make a documentary again someday, but I need to take a break from it.

Being a good rapper is hard to do. I'm a good Rapaport, but that's about it.