“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.”

Poor people don’t like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank they don’t like to think of themselves as poor.

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?

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

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.

Truth is not only a man’s ornament but his instrument; it is the great man’s glory, and the poor man’s stock: a man’s truth is his livelihood, his recommendation, his letters of credit.

THERE is widespread agreement among economists that abuse of credit constitutes one of the chief unwholesome elements in business booms and is mainly responsible for the ensuing crash and depression.

The people who did the collateralized mortgage obligations, sold them to pension funds, then sold them short, then bought credit default swap insurance on them, are just amazing. They are a law unto themselves.

There are a lot of women who feel that they have done all the work in their relationship only for someone else to step in and take the love and credit for it.

How have you arrived at your thinking? Where do your ideas and knowledge come from, and why do you credit some knowledge and discredit others?

I don’t think she realized how much she cared for him, or he for her, until the end. Hasn’t someone said a woman may be known by the men who love her enough to die for her? (If they haven’t, I claim the credit myself.)

As many micro-credit schemes across the world can testify, investment in women is the best investment for the future.

The final outcome of the credit expansion is general impoverishment.