To be honest I'm not going to sell dreams like everybody else does and say, "Sure, it can be changed." I don't want to seem like a pessimist, but nothing's getting better.

Rap is not pop, if you call it that then stop...

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.

When I watch films now, theres more of a musicality to the way the film are written.

In 1999, I just came out of putting out the song 'Vivrant Thing' and 'Breathe and Stop' off the 'Amplified' album. Clive Davis signed me to Arista.

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.

Predating the Internet and predating videos, you had an active imagination. You would hear sounds and then get mental pictures of what these sounds felt like to you. It engaged you and made you more invested in it. It made you want to get tickets to the show, buy the album, put the poster on the wall. Now it's sensory overload.