With the black male as a teenager, where you're coming from the ghettos and that kind of stuff, you've got to assert yourself, be macho, not let anybody walk over you, so that's where all this unnecessary bullshit comes from - from egos. That's why there are a lot of fights. That's how come the whole thing with rap has been violent. It's because of the male ego.
Q-TipI'm a cinephile. I love movies, I love film at every level. I'm a student of it. It informs me as does all art in my music, because there's stories, there's acts, there's moods, there's dynamics, there's moodiness, emotion. All of those things that play into a film. I think that could equally be said about music. It definitely informs me. Beats is stories.
Q-TipWe all have our own takes on things. To being yourself. The abstract, the whole thing that I play with, seems to result in seeing through your lenses, and once you express how you see things to others, you start to see there are similarities between all people. It's kind of like, no matter how far you go, you're still where you started, in a way.
Q-Tip