The main thing I look at is: Is it from the heart? If I know that you down with me, then we always gonna be down through whatever the thick and thin.

I'm not an artist that makes singles, I'm an artist that makes albums, and it's a totally different thing.

I'm my own biggest marketing tool. I know the history of the business and I might as well capitalize on it.

But 'Cuban Linx' was a project that really needed to come, and I really wanted to get it off my chest because I know that the fans were really skeptical about it, like 'is this really gonna be what it's supposed to be?' So once everybody caught it for what it was and everybody was happy, that's mission accomplished for me.

All I did was take my time, figure out where I made a lot of mistakes and try not to make them no more.

When you a young kid at that age at that time, and you know that you got talent as far as hip hop, you wanna be on the radio, that's the first thing. So we was more or less infatuated with just havin' a song on the radio, you know? Before our careers even launched it was more or less about lettin' everybody know, 'Staten Island? You got good emcees there.'

As you keep shooting the ball, you become a better basketball player.