I don't ever want anyone to hear my music and look at it as just gratuitous violence, or hustling and money-getting - I try to tell the perspective of the woman, the man, the mind, why.

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 was in Paris, when Kanye [West] was doing his line and I stopped like, "Woah why are you doing womenswear and why do you think you can do it?" He was like, "Why? You don't know what you like to see women in?" I was like, "Yea but still women are so intricate."

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.

Sonically, musicians always go above and beyond in our efforts to disrupt radio. It's always about being different. Our radio is never conventional anyway.

For me, I was born in the Bronx, and I moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia at a very young age. I had the luxury of going back to New York, visiting my grandmother who would spoil me endlessly, and I could buy whatever was the hot kicks in the summertime of 1990. Being able to shop and then going back to Virginia Beach, where they weren't as fast in regards to fashion, I had that luxury.

I didn't come in as a writer that found producers, I came in under producers. So I've always respected the actual production process and producers in general.