Hip-hop is such a disposable art form from a business standpoint. It never treats its artists as art; it never treats its product as art.

When you first start off, you see what other people have and quietly say, "I want that."

Resistance here doesn't mean revolution. It doesn't mean storming the barricades. Resistance means using art for the things that it does best, which is to create human portraits and communicate ideas and forge a climate where people of different races or classes are known to you because they make themselves known. In the simplest terms, art humanizes. It opens the circuit of empathy. And once that process happens, it's that much harder to think of people as part of a policy or a statistic. Art reverses the alienation that can creep into society.

I hate videos. I'm meticulous on everything from cover art, fonts, productions, mixing. But when it comes to videos, I just feel so defeated.

How do you plan a rebirth? I'm not sure you do. You just stand in the darkness until you can't endure it any long, and then you move forward until you're standing in the light.

I do count on a changing of tides. All too often, what could be a critics' darling today becomes tomorrow's target. I don't want to be too blasé about it.

To be hip-hop is much more than just rapping in the production. It is more in the attitude.