I think the music comes first, then comes the fashion, and thus, the lifestyle. I believe it starts with music, and then the person delivering it delivers the lifestyle, the fashion. Madonna is a great example of that.

You can't live off of just greasy fatty foods and stayin' up till six in the mornin' just partyin'. You gotta take care of yourself.

Hip-hop is so much about character and caricature that people just see you as a character. Very rarely are you flesh and bone to people.

According to my parents, I just started drumming when I was two. I traveled with them from five to seven on the road, playing percussion. Between 8 and 12, my dad sort of prepared me by teaching me every aspect of road life.

I think all of this—The Roots and DJing included—was meant to prepare me for The Tonight Show.

I keep moving through time and time keeps moving through me. And through that process, life takes shape. The question is what shape it is. I'm not the first person to ask that question, or to see how absurd it is to think there's a real answer. Maybe life's a circle.

I have a lot of those 'Forrest Gump,' I-was-there moments.