I'm never in my life going to do a record that's a tribute to myself. I don't need it.

I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America.

We got into all the trouble you could ever imagine. We figured that if the Jones boys and all the gangsters ran Chicago, we had our own territory now. All the stores, all the crime, we were in charge of everything, my stepbrother and my brother.

I improvised my life along the way - I just moved step-by-step. And I knew that if I got better, something would happen.

Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there and so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berklee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

Let's not get too full of ourselves. Let's leave space for God to come into the room.

Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.