When you have a voice and a platform and you know better, it becomes your moral obligation to support that community. And by extension, you're supporting your family.

Hip-hop is a vehicle.

Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it.

My parents are my biggest influences. My parents and my city. Brooklyn, New York, New York City, the community I grew up. I don't feel like I'm special in that. I feel like that's everybody.

When you have a voice and a platform and you know better, it becomes your moral obligation to support that community. And by extension, you're supporting your family.

I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.

But there's so many things in life like women, like children, like God and family that transcends the world of hip-hop.