As gang members, as young dudes in the streets, especially in L.A., we're the effect of a situation. We didn't wake up and create our own mindstate and our environment; we adapted our survival instincts.

When I became a man, and I started to understand the difference between the truth and what your parents are supposed to tell you, there's a difference, know what I mean?

All the smart money got they bets on me / And all the real niggas wish the best for me

I feel that luck is a product of hard work.

And it's possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.

In all honesty, based on the direction my life was heading in before I got a real break in the music sh*t, I'm not gonna say I would be one hundred percent in a negative direction, but I know that I would still be in the streets, so if it wasn't for the music bein' my outlet, I'd probably be hustlin', I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to go and get a nine-to-five, I never finished high school or none of that.

It's my opinion that, if Barack did want to solve the gang problem, number one would be to work with people from the inside out, people who can actually give him an accurate analysis of the problem in L.A., because they're in it or at one point were a part of it, and now they're workin' to change it, and redirect the energy and the focus of it. And then consciously take steps to solve the problem.