Jay Z and President Bush have a lot in common, that same brash confidence

I think that good writing is based on good reading. Maybe it's not about writing today, maybe it's about reading today. Maybe it's about finding the sort of book you would never read.

American culture is often so self-consumed that we often think that our problems are just our problems.

I want to connect music to its highest power - which is heightening consciousness and affecting people's reality. That can't be done in normal ways, not according to my experience.

If we're gonna progress as a people we are going to realise that, as one of my favourite poets says, the other is a lie. There are no other people. Race is a social construct.

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

I've never believed it's really so important that you conform to the ways of the system in order to beat the system. I think that the system follows a great deal.