As an artist, I have to be a leader of my fans, not like follow them. Because if I chose to follow them, you know, they could do it.

God gave us music, so we play with our words.

Coltrane had a sax, Dale Earnhardt drives a race car and everybody has their tools.

The thing is, allies is people who are friends, people you can rely on in the struggle. You're not always going to agree with your allies. For instance, Stevie Wonder I feel like is my ally when it comes to this Florida situation, but I don't agree with his strategy. That doesn't mean he isn't an ally.

What else is stop and frisk? These neighborhoods are unsafe not because there's not enough cops illegally frisking people. They're not safe because of economic conditions. They're not safe because of all types of things in the government that people like Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly should be looking to fix instead of randomly searching kids in the hood. If you go to a college campus and you do stop and frisk, you're going to find a lot of drugs there, too.

I try to count the blessings rather than the problems.

The way I see it, if people truly love my music, they will support me in some way down the road.