When you finally find the courage to admit you have a problem, that's when you have some power over it. That's the first step. Otherwise you're just withering away, you're like a burning piece of paper getting smaller and smaller.

Hip-hop culture itself has completely consumed everything involved in entertainment. When you think about basketball like the way those guys dress; I don't know if you notice but people care about how you dress these days.

I didn't set out like, "I'm gonna do this album, and I really want a #1 album." So it wasn't even on my mind like a goal to accomplish... but as soon as it sunk it that it was an accomplishment, I realized I gotta start acknowledging milestones [I've] accomplished because sometimes you get so caught up in the bigger picture that you gotta stop and notice the steps you take to get to the bigger picture.

It's just an inspiring journey in itself to stop drinking this late in my career after abusing alcohol and to have this kind of success so late when usually people give you like this window of success time.

I don't think I ever would have had a problem being vulnerable or introspective but the problem with drinking is it's very hard to zero in on one part. You're not dealing with anything in real time, you're constantly moving and constantly going. You're drinking to get away from things, things your dealing with. My wife might be calling me trying to argue and I don't wanna deal with it so I just go drink and by the time we talk again I'm so drunk I just don't care. I'll just deal with it however.

I feel think the next logical step is acting, which I think is cool but I never got the acting bug. I never looked at a movie and thought "I wanna act," but after seeing that play I thought, "I wanna write a movie, and I wanna write a play." I will write a movie and I will write a play.

When you're sober it's easier to stay in line with your train of thought. There's a lot more you're thinking about that you want to discuss, and there are a lot more memories that you're dealing with that you had pent up inside of you for so long because you had been drinking all of those years.