Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.

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 got my first exposure to Islam when I was 13.

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

You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it’s vital that a change happens now.

What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends. The ability to have somebody read something and see it, or for somebody to paint an entire landscape of visual imagery with just sheets of words - that's magical.

I'm doing exactly what I was supposed to do. Yeah. I didn't exactly choose this. My own life, if it were up to me, would be very, very quiet. I'd be like a shopkeeper, a book collector, or something like that. I'm not like this. Myself as a performer and an artist is totally different from who I am.