All on the street, you get treated like a street cat: "All right, you've been eatin' enough, you're fat, get out of the way now and let somebody else come by."

I didn't really do many business ventures throughout my career because I would have an idea and then before I'd have a chance to make something of it, I'd see someone else do it. I just liked to watch my fellow artists become entrepreneurs and be people who can inspire the next generation. I did that more with my songs.

All on the street, you get treated like a street cat: "All right, you've been eatin' enough, you're fat, get out of the way now and let somebody else come by."

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.

Don't speak to fools, they scorn the wisdom of your words.

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.

Hip-hop is bigger than the South, hip-hop is bigger than New York.