Some people say I'm conscious, some say I'm a gangsta rapper - it's just me doing me. I'm stomping in my own lane. I'm doing what I do.

Mind's in another world thinking how can we exist through the facts

I want to hear the artist. I want to hear them give me something that I can relate to, other than the fact that everything's about bragging.

The further I get, the further I want to go

People have stopped battling in hip hop, in the primitive sense, and the focus of the competitive element has shifted to the music. It's less about bragging and more about being the best lyrically and poetically.

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 is such an amazing thing that kids still want to do it. They're not saying, "Ugh, that's the old people's music." No, they're younger than they've ever been that want to get into hip-hop music.