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.

I feel like people can feel when something is natural. I think they can tell.

I try to make Play Cloths really representative of me and my designers they look at my evolution as an artist and in fashion and they [zero] in to different details. I come into the office some days and they're like, 'What are those?" [I say,] "[These] are Philip Lim...[I'll] have on Philip Lim sweats and they go and put their spin on it.

Hip-hop to me right now is really easy listening. It's very easy listening, like there's nothing abrasive about it. There's no album that I put in my car that makes me roll down the windows - all the windows - and ride past the club line three times before I get out the car.

I was going through a time where I was like man I wanted all of my clothes to be totally understated and I would do pop color with hats from a line called Ale et Ange out of New york City. They created all these hats and I just thought they were super fresh and the only way that I could really get them across...I was just like, 'Let me make everything mute and just put on the hat.'

My style is a mix and match of everything. Like I said, It's Play Cloths, it's Saint Laurent, and I know I sort of won when everything can be understated, it can be three different brands, and you can't really see what it is and then you just ask, "Well damn that looks good, what is that?"

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.