I like music with soul and passion and the good of humanity. As long as it has those things, I'm all the way in.

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.

It's not just a struggle for blacks to be accepted by whites, but the other way around as well. A lot of people don't see that.

I have a very connected history with Bilal. I heard his demo years ago. I heard all of the magic instantly. He's a master at interpretation of song.

I grew up on the rough side of the tracks. If you looked like you were soft, you would be fodder for the wolves. I came up in my neighbourhood like, 'I'm just gonna be me,' and all the thugs just said, 'It's OK, he's special.' They knew I had the talent with the rhymes, so they kept me around.

I'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.

Genetics and beats? I feel like the drumbeat is a natural thing. Our heartbeat moves at a certain BPM. The drumbeat, being the first instrument, the platform for us, being that we all kind of come from that - it's all beats.