My skin is an art gallery right, with paintings and crucifixes hoping to save me from all the dangers in the music business

When I made Illmatic, I was trying to make the perfect album. It comes from the days of Wild Style. I was trying to make you experience my life. I wanted you to look at hip-hop differently. I wanted you to feel that hip-hop was changing and becoming something more real.

I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that's been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.

The hardest thing is to forgive, but God does, even if you murdered or robbed, ya it's wrong, but God loves, take one step toward him he'll take two toward you, even when all else fails, God'll support you

Just do as much as you can.

How can you lose when you're doing you?

Hip-hop is the streets. Hip-hop is a couple of elements that it comes from back in the days... that feel of music with urgency that speaks to you. It speaks to your livelihood and it's not compromised. It's blunt. It's raw, straight off the street - from the beat to the voice to the words.