I don't think I'm a collector. I think every kid from where I'm from had a terrible passion for having to have fresh kicks.

Fashion right now, people are so...everything is driven by the aesthetic.

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.

I can't force the direction that it's going to go without actually taking the time to make sure it's a great, great quality product. Whether that's for apparel, or whatever the case may be.

About the Sauconys, there are a lot of sneakers that are not as marketed as heavily as like Nike but those silhouettes are still fresh. I'll always go to a Saucony.

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.

If you had two pair of jeans, four shirts, you were cool if you had a couple pair of kicks that were fresh. That was it. That's how it started.