I like the fact that I can rep New York, but my style does not - I'm not trapped in a New York thing. I can do art songs with other artists and it's seamless.

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

Music is not an exact science so depending on the time and the mode and the energy when we do it that will determine what happens with it.

No one likes to be treated like people in minority communities. What it's saying is that because you're poor, because you live in a neighborhood that deals with oppressed conditions, you deserve to be treated like a criminal. In our Constitution it says you have the right to live without illegal search and seizure.

When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that.

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.

Hip hop is at its essence a folk music, because it speaks the language that people are still speaking at ground zero, it speaks the language that people speak on the streets.