“Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that’s the foundation for everything great.”

If just the presence of Tidal causes other companies to have better pay structure or to pay more attention to it moving forward, then we’ve been successful in one way. So we don’t really view them as competitors. As the tide rises, all the boats rise.

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.

I’m just going to make the music I love to make, and I’m going to mature with my music.

It’s hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he’s like, ‘You speak so well!’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? Do you understand that’s an insult?

I came into this music business at 26 years old. I was a fully developed man at that point. At that age, I didn’t have anything to prove.

I am against discrimination of any kind, but if I make snap judgments, no matter who it’s towards, aren’t I committing the same sin as someone who profiles?

I don’t sit around with my friends and talk about money, ever. On a record, that’s different.

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama’s running so we all can fly.

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.

New York – I’m connected. This is my core. I feel like if I’m not connected to New York, then I don’t even know what to do with myself.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like ‘I still go to the projects.’ I’m like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it’s so cool?

People wanted to make products based on our child’s name, and you don’t want anybody trying to benefit off your baby’s name.

Obama provides hope. Whether he does anything, the hope that he provides for a nation and outside of America is enough. Just being who he is. You’re the first black president. If he speaks on any issue or anything, he should be left alone.

That was the greatest trick in music that people ever pulled off, to convince artists that you can’t be an artist and make money. I think the people that were making the millions said that. It was almost shameful, especially in rock n’ roll.

I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.

As kids we didn’t complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it.

Sometimes you need to press pause to let everything sink in.

I owe the best of myself to geology, but everything it has taught me tends to turn me away from dead things.

I’m from Samoan heritage, and with the rugby in our blood and everything,

I see them in my audience all the time, with the fur coat, a woman whose hand is always out front, or the two fingers are on the cheek to show her diamond. I don’t have anything against that.

I think that the important changes have already happened, changes in consciousness. It’s mostly a matter of everything else catching up to that.

Orson Welles was one of these people who was defying everything the doctors told him he wasn’t supposed to be doing. He was really enjoying himself when he was eating what he wanted to eat.

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.