I'm inspired by playwrights, novelists, poets: The value of language has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it. I'm good at it.

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

People don't like the music that's out now, that's on their radio stations, and they want to hear something different, but they're just the audience. You know, people will keep the TV on even if a show is on that they hate - because, unfortunately, they've been programmed to do that. [But] they are really looking for something that's gonna speak to the world that they're living in. That's what people are looking for, but they're not finding it.

Hip-hop is the last true folk art.

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.

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 want to waste anyone's time or money. I want to give people some truth and positive heart lift.