I think the people who are saying jazz has to sound a particular way, or "what you're doing isn't jazz," are just scared because they can't do it. A lot of them just aren't talented enough to do anything new, honestly. It's the people who are talented enough and who have the open mind and who are forward-thinkers are the ones who are doing something new. You tend to hate on what you can't produce.

It's the repetitive thing that brings space. That's one of the things I love secretly about hip-hop. Jazz doesn't have that element. It changes every bar, nothing is ever the same.

I do feel a responsibility because most people like me that are my age or younger, they don't quite make it over to the jazz side. They flirt with it, but they don't quite marry it.

Jazz is like a big secret club. The mainstream media doesn't pay any attention to it, it's like 1 percent of the music market - no one cares. Why? Because the majority of jazz is old.

For the most part, 99 percent of jazz is boring; you've heard it before. People aren't doing anything creative that's extremely modern. They tend to always be like "Let's do a tribute to Miles Davis!" All the new albums are tributes to history. It becomes too much at a certain point, it leaves us waving like "Hello? I'm alive, I'm here!" You know? So I really do feel like it needs some spice, it needs to be relevant to today's times, today's people, today's sound.

Instead of hearing, "Oh, he's good," I'd rather hear, "Wow, you changed my feelings today, you made me feel different."

If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.