People think that the government honors and respects us, and that they're actually going to come in and help people in need, but in reality it's really just a bunch of red tape, and through the power of language they can really make it seem like they're going to do a lot when they aren't going to do anything but filter money back into their own pockets.

We're kept scrambling so much that we don't have time to really study and analyze and understand the way that power really works in this country.

We're kept so busy focusing on things that are extremely mundane while the people that possess the real power are deciding what our reality's going to be.

If you're following your heart, you're moving in the right direction.

Having my foundation be from two positive black role models in my life, my mom and my dad, two strong-minded intelligent individuals who clearly have made a great deal of great decisions in their lives and put me in a position, via educational institutions, to be around other intelligent people and to have a strong moral foundation, from which I try to never stray far. It all spurred me to carve out my own little niche as a human being.

Politicians step up and say, "This is what were going to do: we're going to set aside 450 million dollars for a mentorship program for orphaned youth," and so on and so forth, and it sounds great in this romanticized vision of what these alleged leaders are going to do for the alleged meek. But it doesn't examine: why are these kids orphans?

Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is the straight-up peak of hip-hop. Straight-up one of the most powerful records ever made, period, in music.