I remember being a little kid sitting in the living room with my brother and some friends from around the neighborhood, and I would sit at the piano and as they were running around the room doing different things and being silly, acting out, I would actually play the score for it - the music that went along with it.

The casual listener won't be around forever.

Who can't relate to the idea of leaving one chapter behind and moving on to the next?

As a creative person you just get an idea in your head, and sometimes you just can't shake it off.

Go find something that you haven't done before. Don't do the same thing over and over again.

If I weren't making music, I'd be the kid who writes into the magazines and says, "why don't you guys ever cover anything that's different? Hip hop is so much of the same thing over and over again." I love hip hop, so I wanted to make an album from that standpoint, 'cause that's who I am.

A decade is a long time to be doing anything, much less to be with the same guys, chasing after the same goals.