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

I'm really quite bipolar, and the depressed times, when everything felt like night, sometimes you get to such a low point that you physically beat at it until it bleeds - as you would say - bleeds till sunshine. You get to a point where you say, 'I will not take it anymore! I'm gonna do something drastic if I stay this depressed. I've got to break out of there!'

In the early '90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading.

I know what it feels like to have the door slammed firmly in my face, so I'm cool with that.

Every time you ask yourself where hip-hop's going, ask yourself where you're going; how are you doing?

The moment you start thinking it's hopeless, then it is. [But], if you think it's gonna get better, it really does. Life is a test.

Fame is like getting across the street. It's like, if there's nothing to be across the street for, it's a pointless destination.