Hip-hop is a beautiful culture. It's inspirational, because it's a culture of survivors. You can create beauty out of nothingness.

To me, the job of the artist is to provide a useful and intelligent vocabulary for the world to be able to articulate feelings they experience everyday, and otherwise wouldn't have the means to express in a meaningful and useful way.

I don't care about what brand you are, I'm concerned what type of man you are, what your principles and standards are.

I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about.

Why do I need I.D. to get I.D.? If I had I.D. I wouldn't need I.D.

So rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable. But, that doesn't mean there aren't a great number of artists who are doing things to change that.

I thought everybody got into rock 'n' roll because they didn't want to follow instructions.