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.

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.

My thing is that I don't give no person that much power over my path that I'm walking. Not one person can make or break what I'm doing, except me or God.

If you 35, 28, or 30 years old, and you decide you're gonna pick up a rag and start bangin', and you can look yourself in the mirror and you still feel like you're a man? That's cool, do your thing.

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.

Obviously from childhood to my teenage years, I really came into my own. I left the house early; I was on the streets when I was, like, 15. I've been holdin' my own since that age.

[In Eritrea] in key positions - president, government, police - everybody's the same [color]. It's a country run by its people. No racial class, everybody feels a part of it.