I have a very family-like connection to hip-hop, which is why it frustrates me so much.

I think art can really serve to inspire a movement - and, of course, it has in the past. The Civil Rights movement wouldn't have the same resonance without the songs from everyone from Pete Seeger to Odetta to James Brown.

The hero is the person who's afraid to run away.

The organization of self, and all self-aligning principles would be those that I promote.

I was fed by the music I listened to as a kid. Hip-hop fed me psychologically, spiritually, politically. I learned from that music.

The music aids the message, it's there to punctuate and abbreviate and shape the silence

What I'm aiming to do within hip-hop is to point out that the music itself is powerful; it reaches so many people.