A star's the work - the work ethic you put into the business, and the people you excite. We only wanted to excite only a few people at that time, which was some o' the emcees that was hot that was in the game.

In order to be one of the greats, you've got to study the greats.

Growing up in music motivated me. I applied that to my education and it made me a better person.

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

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

I think a lot of people can learn from listening to hip hop. It ain't always about beats and rhymes.

Before I think we was emcees, we was more or less narrators too. Because if you look at the early '80s hip hop, it was so much creativity goin' on with artists like then, like Slick Rick, then you had Rakim, and you had these different kind of artists back then. And we was a marble cake of all these artists. So I didn't have a problem with writin' stories because I felt like that was somethin' I loved to do. Even to this day, I really consider myself an entertainer-slash-narrator. I like to talk about stuff that goes on.