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.

I'm spinning records and I look across the restaurant and I see somebody who looks Asian. And I'm like, "Yo, that looks like Yoko Ono." I'm like, oh, I can just meet - that's going to be great. Then I look carefully and I'm like, "That's not Yoko Ono, that's Bruno Mars." And it was Bruno Mars. That just happened recently. I was bugging out. Because that was totally not Yoko Ono at all.

My fondest memories were watching the Beastie Boys get prepped to come on stage. They had a lot of antics and they play a lot of basketball... then they were giving out cameras to the crowd, and performing from the bleachers. The most important thing I learned was that you control your crowd, not the other way around.

I don't care if Rick Ross is 40 years old -- he's a misguided 40-year-old person.

I think its man's nature to go to war and fight.

I gotta be dope first. I gotta be appealing to your senses, and to what you like first. Then the message happens. Then you relate to the message.

As far as being on a major label, some labels get it and get what they have to do, and some labels don't. I don't think the label I'm on necessarily gets it, but I think over time they're gonna have to.