In the 2000s, I became an artist. I started preserving and educating. I became more obsessed with making iPod playlists for people.

At 25, my idea of success may have been more vain, like, "I'll be good the day that there's $20 million in my account and I have this particular house and the wife and 2.5 kids." But at 40 - and I know it's kind of silly telling you guys this - but as long as my Metacritic rating stays above 80, that's all I care about.

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.

My life's goal is to find a happy medium for sampling to be not only legal but for the right parties to benefit from it. There have to be sampling laws. The survival of hiphop is based on that.

I feel like the downfall of any person is the second an artist starts celebrating their work themselves, that becomes problematic. And you know, I don't sit there, I don't bask in the awards I've won, you know, read my bank statements, I refuse. To me, that's how you start losing the hunger. So for me personally, I just don't celebrate it. I'm happy, right now.

And even though people like to furrow their brow like they suspect you're not being honest about yourself, the truth is that they worry that you're not serving their idea of you.

I'm not one of those people who's so blinded by my own work and my sweat. It's kind of risky writing a memoir when you're really part of a larger universe.