America is a melting pot for all different groups of people, historically. And it's rare that the story of all of these people will be told in the history books. So I always felt I had to find out my history for myself and research my roots.

Life is short is what some niggaz said; not if you measure life - by how one lives and what he did.

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 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.

When I try to sound like the contemporary sound, it never turns out that way.

I broke into shakespeare's tomb and stole his remains, grinded the bones, smoked it, then got in the game

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