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.
NasI'm never gonna die, never heard of death, energy can never be destroyed only the flesh, so when you try to murder me with bullets to the head this is why you can't kill me niggaz, I'm already dead.
NasI'm inspired by people like Nelson Mandela. Can you imagine - you know how racist America was back then - imagine how racism was in South Africa when he had to stand up and say what he had to say. That's bravery beyond comprehension.
NasI think it's harder to make a classic now, not because of what people say, but because artists now are so concerned with what people say.
Nas