“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.”

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.

What are you talking about? Wait a minute, you’re getting out of the zone.’ People hate when people cross lines.

The day Obama got into office, rap was less important because Obama gave kids an alternative. But will rap ever go away? No. There will always be a need for poets.

When I listen to Amy Winehouse, I believe that her heart and soul is in the music, or if I listen to other British artists like Duffy or Estelle. The aesthetic of it is different, and it’s my point of view. It’s not anything formulaic.

Racism is taught in the home. We agree on that? Well, it’s very hard to teach racism to a teenager who’s listening to rap music and who idolizes, say, Snoop Dogg. It’s hard to say, ‘That guy is less than you.’ The kid is like, ‘I like that guy, he’s cool. How is he less than me?

What people have to understand is ‘Billboard’ is a magazine. They’re like elected officials – they work for us.

I’ll make a song with Rick Rubin, a song with Beyonce, a song with Lenny Kravitz. I just believe in making good music. I’m not trying to section myself off into just making hard-core rap music.

For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options.

A village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to conquer the earth.

The real guru is the pure intellect within; and the purified, deeply aspiring mind is the disciple.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God… and where can you go from there?

And sometimes we aspire to have these ideas in our heads of what perfection is.

Whereas the graphic novel is now being held up as something to aspire to and as something that’s respectable for adults to read.

Every actor has his own identity. I don’t aspire to be Bond. My quest is to do something new, something different.