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

You see somebody rapping and you're like, "Nah, my cousin can do that." You're spoiled by the experience. Overseas, it's still something that people can appreciate.

Being called a conscious rapper is quite a compliment. It's a great thing to be. But as an artist, my nature is to not be in a box.

Hopefully, we learn to appreciate hip-hop here so that it doesn't go the way of jazz.

Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.

We send young white boys to the Army. We're sending young black boys to the prisons.

I don’t think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hop’s ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures.