For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.

Do you see how Jerry Heller made it work? That is how he combined what we did to make the rap music into mass music. That's exactly how it happened.

When my mother and my grandmother died three months apart, I knew my world was over.

Then instead of introducing Dre as the guy from N.W.A., Jerry Heller would say Dre was my producer! Dre would come to my interviews with me - he'd come to all these places that would never have had the guy from N.W.A. Wasn't it genius?

When I say I loved it, I don't mean I loved being hit. I just mean...there was some good in there, too. I am not going to call it all bad.

There is still a lot of hard work that we as a country need to do. They can't look to any one individual, whether it's Barack or it's the next new hope that's going to appear to be that savior.

I can't think of any time we had a discussion [with Dre] about the aftermath of what happened the night before. We just had too much going on.