I'm an independent thinker. And I'm not the poster child for any movement. I'm trying to support whatever's right no matter where it is.

I never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice.

Make today's solid ground out of yesterday's quicksand.

I believe the projects were a social experiment; we were laboratory rats stacked on top of each other, and people just knew, inherently, that there was something wrong. There's not a lot of regard for the property by the residents.

I think hip-hop is actually one of the most challenging things that's happened in music in a long time. The people who are in charge of what people see or hear are afraid. What you hear on top 40 or what you see on BET or MTV is not a fair representation of what is really going on...

We can be beautiful and feel beautiful about who we are everyday.

I'm growing as an individual, but your always growing. All of my albums are snapshots of where I am artistically.