I think the biggest problem in our country is mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex. From the Rockefeller drug laws to stand your ground to stop and frisk, all these are pointing people, especially and disproportionately black and brown people, towards the criminal-justice system. It's depleting whole generations of people.

Unfortunately hip-hop is so competitive that in order for fringe groups to get in, you gotta be better than whoever's the best. So before Eminem, the idea that there would be a white rapper that anybody would really check for was fantastic or amazing or impossible.

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

Honestly, you have to take care of yourself. That's probably something I have learned on the road.

Woman are complex creatures.

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

I don't feel comfortable making empty music.