I feel like Hip Hop culture has always been about [fashion]...it started in the street so it has always been a thing of the streets to be first.

I find myself trying to explain more, and explain the perspective of my mentality, or the mentality I'm trying to convey.

As a writer, you have a huge ego. You think that every line means something to everybody the same way it means to you. And that's not true.

I try to mix the fashion with the music and what's going on at the time...at the time [when my uniform was black on black] I was putting together an album, my album was my name at the time; very minimal, very stripped down, very everything but it still had and have to have some level of pop.

Coming up, you [got new] sneakers and you had to run outside to make sure everyone saw. It was on display. That's just part of Hip Hop culture, part of the competitive spirit of Hip Hop. This is not new, I don't believe it's new.

The passion for sneakers has been there since day one, but I never held onto them. I never shrunkwrap them. It's always been about getting it, buying it, wearing it, showing it and moving on to the next one.

Of course fashion is definitely playing a part.