Nice guys just don't finish first in the music industry.

I realize I will always be the poster child for police brutality, but I can try to use that as a positive force for healing and restraint.

What I've learned to do is arrest my addiction - arrest it myself, so I don't get arrested.

I sometimes feel like I'm caught in a vise. Some people feel like I'm some kind of hero. Others hate me.

I tell myself time heals. It really does.

Obama, he wouldn't have been in office without what happened to me and a lot of black people before me. He would never have been in that situation, no doubt in my mind. He would get there eventually, but it would have been a lot longer. So I am glad for what I went through. It opened the doors for a lot of people.

Over the years, a lot of rappers - Lil' Wayne, Ice Cube - have used my name in their songs. I'm a real touchstone of history.