“I think hip-hop could help rebuild America, once hip-hoppers own hip-hop… We are our own politicians, our own government, we have something to say. We’re warriors. Soldiers.”

I just enjoy life now. I just enjoy every morning I get to wake up.

No matter what the song was about, I had ’em out there.

I think the hip-hop purists are purists through and through. They’re here to criticize all of us. That’s just how it is. We as MC’s criticize each other. That’s the nature of hip-hop.

I’m talking about me being American and growing up in a crazy world and helping to reflect all different sides of life.

It speaks to your livelihood and it’s not compromised. It’s blunt. It’s raw, straight off the street – from the beat to the voice to the words.

I don’t go out unless I’m working. My quality time is when I’m doing nothing.

I like the way hip-hop is now. It’s grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it.

My fun is not doing the easy work. My fun is doing what’s me.

I think I’ve had the longest career of strength, focus, and still being able to sell records.

You don’t know anything about respect; you don’t know anything about being faithful and loyal to your girlfriend.

I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat.

You can hear, like, you know, Africans and Jamaicans doing it just kind of as, like, a rhythmic, poetic conversation, you know, to a rhythm.

All fatherhood is very important because single mothers shouldn’t have to raise sons or daughters; they need that help.

I’m a big fan of Common. I’m a big fan of Scarface; I’m a big fan of so many people, from Jeezy to… well, there are a lot of people’s music that I respect.

I never stood for any president in my life, never voted, before Barack Obama. It changed my life to vote. It starts there with me.

DJs play a big responsibility of what hip-hop is doing… At the end of the day, it’s up to us to control and to own hip-hop.

Hip-hop is really standoffish. It’s really competitive and it’s really about who’s number one all the time. Sometimes it gets out of hand.

I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam’s fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era.

Hip-hop is bigger than the South; hip-hop is bigger than New York.

Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don’t think it’s given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely.

Hip-hop has done more for race relations than most cultural icons; and I say save Martin Luther King, because his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech was realized when Obama was elected into office.

Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don’t even have to like your music. If you’re big enough, people are drawn to you.

Hip-hop is the streets. Hip-hop is a couple of elements that it comes from back in the days… that feel of music with urgency that speaks to you.

People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It’s worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that.