“I try to bring musicians into the logistics of filmmaking.”

Something respected, was the most important thing to do with your life.

100 percent, my whole life. I went to school, I did music theory,

As a kid, I wasn’t given the sense that celebrity, or fame or any of that,

Was something to be impressed by, or to seek out. It was always impressed upon me that making something well crafted

I felt like I wanted to make more than just music.

I’m pretty committed to being a filmmaker because it incorporates everything I love: music, art direction, story, and you know – everything.

And I try to preserve whatever’s of value and achievable in their idea.

I’ve never made a video where I didn’t talk to the artist before I wrote the treatment.

Basically, I enter into it knowing we are collaborators.

I always wanted to be a musician.

And I’ve tried to do that where I can in my field.

If it’s something I can’t achieve, I tell them straight.

Otherwise they’re not going to feel great when they’re up there miming it.

My process in making a music video is pretty much a formula of talking to the artist.

I did voice training and piano lessons, and while I was a decent musician.

It didn’t seem like enough for me.

Love is powerful. It can bring the gods to their knees.

Stillmatic’ is the rebirth of ‘Illmatic,’ my first debut album to come out in 1994. ‘Stillmatic’ is me coming full circle in my career and with everything, and just bringing pure hip-hop back.

The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large.

Why don’t you bring your face up here and let me punch it? Then you can tell me (if I’m stronger).

My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn’t dare do themselves.

Wherever I go, I bring the culture with me, so that they can understand that it’s attainable. I didn’t do it any other way than through hip-hop.

Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.

A child understands fear, and the hurt and hate it brings.