Hip-hop artist, especially the older ones, are the ones who new hip-hop was a worldwide phenomenon before the mainstream caught on, so hip-hop artists are forward thinkers. We want to stay with the new.

No temporary chaos is worth your sanity.

When you're a teenager, you want to meet a lot of girls - you want to get the most girls. You don't know anything about respect; you don't know anything about being faithful and loyal to your girlfriend.

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

I want you to know who I am: what the streets taste like, feel like, smell like. What the cops talk like, walk like, think like. What crackheads do - I wanted you to smell it, feel it. It was important to me that I told the story that way because I thought that it wouldn't be told if I didn't tell it.

Hip hop started in NY so it's important that New Yorkers realise that to talk about NY music and its sound should not be a small-minded conversation. Music is supposed to evolve. It's supposed to be going through changes, it's not supposed to sound exactly the same as what it did when it started. NY hip hop has to be allowed to move on and grow and expand.

Anybody can be a rapper, but not anybody can be a classical artist.