It's good to feel excited by the environment you're in.

What Rare [albom] allows me to do is gonna show people other things that I'm capable of 'cause they really haven't heard a lot of things outside of the rap stuff that I do.

I like things that are beaten up, that have lived a little. I like things that are real. I like things that are made out of wood or string. I never feel very responsive to plastic machinery.

As I grew older, I actually was prepared to go into fine arts school and do a degree. That was what I was actually settled upon when I was offered a record deal.

I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs.

When I was young, I had idols that I thought were wonderful. I wanted to be just like them.

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.