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.

Through the lights cameras and action, glamour glitters and gold I unfold the scroll, plant seeds to stampede the globe.

No Ideas original - there is nothing new under the sun.

Anybody I'm dating, I don't want them to talk about my music. I don't talk about my music to them.

I wanted to say what wasn't being said. I wanted to give people a real story. I wanted people to know people like me exist in the world.

Hip-hop ain't died because of the South, that's retarded. When I named the album originally, I thought I bit off more than I could chew but you'd be an idiot to think I'm talking about how the South killed hip-hop or how New York isn't where it should be or where it once was. It was like, "Damn, I need to explain this?" But I thought, "Nah, the proof is right there. We should know what it is." I expect the hip-hop audience to be avant garde. I want them to be where I'm at or beyond where I'm at.

I think hip hop allows us to talk about everything, and Africa is what I choose to talk about now. If people are not talking about Africa, that's them, that's cool, there's nothing wrong with that. But this is who I am, this is what I have to say, this is what I have to offer.