I don't understand how people can stand next to you one year,and next year, they cannot. They're going crazy, screaming. They can't take it that you're there. But last year I was in the same club,walking around,lonely like a motherfucker. Couldn't get a date or a dance. I was too skinny, too something, and now, "He's just adorable. He's just, oh!

The only thing America respects is power and power concedes nothing. After the LA Riots, they tried to calm us down and nothing changed since.

Even as a dope fiend mama. You always was a black queen mama.

The thing that bothers me is that it seems like all the sensitive stuff I write just goes unnoticed . . . the media doesn't get who I am at all. Or maybe they just can't accept it. It doesn't fit into those negative stories they like to write. I'm the kind of guy who is moved by a song like Don McLean's "Vincent," that one about Van Gogh. The lyric on that song is so touching. That's how I want to make my songs feel. Take "Dear Mama" - I aimed that one straight for my homies' heartstrings.

I'm calling for dialogue. I'm gathering attention for dialogue which is what you do in a struggle for power.

America wants its respect.

A coward dies a thousand times, a soldier dies but once.