“I talk about life, and I make universal music with an American style – and that’s what I do.”

You can’t please everybody. You’d be crazy if you’re trying to. So take some time out to do some things for yourself.

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.

Men look like pandas when they try and put make-up on.

It makes me sad, sad inside, to see a warrior without his pride.

Keep focused on the substantive issues. To make a decision means having to go through one door and closing all others.

Their neighbours are being murdered, but they only make calculations for their own benefit.

Allah makes the way to Jannah easy for him who treads the path in search of knowledge.

If it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one’s fellow travelers.

That’s the thing about making a movie: You never finish editing. They just take it away from you.

When you make your peace with authority, you become authority.