When you think of a chef you think of somebody that could cook - you don't think of chef that says, 'Yo, I make only steaks'. No. A chef knows how to bake, he knows how to fry, he knows how to sautee, he knows how to do everything that's pertaining to food, and that's how I felt about my lyrical position. It's like I would say, 'Today I'm gonna make a hot salmon. Tomorrow I make you spaghetti. The next day I make you baked fish'. This is how my lyrical content in my head was already bein' reciprocated to the world, bein' given to y'all like that.

As an artist, it's so important to create music that puts a chill through your body or does something to make you feel good. I think my album has a little bit of everything in it and that's important to me.

You know the things I went through as a youngster, coming into the business, all the good, the bad and the ugly that came. I'd had a rough life. I grew up single parent. My mom, she was like a father to me.

I always write to the moment. I've always been that kind of emcee. I don't wanna come in with all the paperwork and all o' that or whatever. That's good when you just an emcee from off the block that really don't have to work as hard as the next man. But when, you know... Y'all make me write like this, from, I guess, me makin' a classic and everybody callin' my stuff classic material - that makes me have to work ten times harder. But a lot o' times things just happen at the moment for me: spur o' the moment. That's just how it goes sometimes.

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

I think there are a lot of dudes out there that are runnin' out of gas. Some of my favourites, even ones I look up to... I haven't been fully impressed with their dynamics of makin' a body of work that makes sense to me.

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