I've never been - I don't think I'm, like, a great A&R, by any means. I don't even know production lingo, in all honesty.

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.

Today I feel like it's about people just looking fresh and their records aren't fresh.

When I think back to my influences and icons musically, they were my icons musically because, for example, I would look at Rakim and be like man he said the freshest things and then I look at him and he would have on the pair of Nikes that I wanted and I'm like, "ma' please!" It was everything. Now, I sort of feel like if you are fresh then your music doesn't have to be that good because people are so keyed into the fashion. That's just the times I guess.

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.

At the end of the day I want to wear everything.

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.