“If your dad died before you were born, yeah, it hurts – but it’s not like you had a connection with something that was real. Not to say it’s any better – but to have that connection and then have it ripped away was, like, the worst.”

Religion is like a personal computer. You let people in if you want to… We’re all gods.

My dad was such a good dad that when he left, he left a huge scar. He was my superhero.

I think that’s what happened to the record business when ‘Napster’ came around. The industry rejected what was happening instead of accepting it as change.

The average rap life is two or three albums. You’re lucky to get to your second album in rap!

Growing up, politics never trickled down to the areas we come from. But people from Obama’s camp, and Obama himself, reached out to me and asked for my help on the campaign. We’ve sat and had dinner, and we’ve spoken on the phone. He’s a very sharp guy. Very charming. Very cool.

I don’t think any rapper can go back. You can be a car salesman, a bank teller – I mean, really good jobs, and people are still gonna look at you and be like, ‘You used to rap; what happened?’

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.

I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity.

I’ve talked to Bill Clinton – he’s the ultimate rock star; no one’s more charming than him. People clap in a restaurant when he finishes dinner! I don’t get that treatment. I get it when I walk onstage, but not when I have dinner.

Music is everywhere – you consume it every day, everywhere you go. The content creator should be compensated. It’s only fair.

I don’t have any fear of working with Samsung because I’m not gonna let them put a phone on my forehead; that’s just never gonna happen.

I remember the first time I saw the ‘Sugarhill Gang’ on Soul Train. I was 11 or 12. I was like, ‘What’s going on? How did those guys get on national TV?’ And then, when I was a little older, a rapper from the neighborhood got a record deal. I was shocked.

I’ve said the election of Obama has made the hustler less relevant. People took it in a way that I was almost dismissing what I am. And I was like, ‘No, it’s a good thing!’

The challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its value.

When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. It immediately resonated.

I was never a worker. And that’s not even being arrogant. I was just never a worker.

The star [Tycho’s supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, pestilence, and venomous snakes.

I hate birthdays, .. It’s more like a new starting point in New York. For me, it’s an evolution. I don’t celebrate the past. I like the present and tomorrow.

I tend to like to make my statements more in fashion than in beauty, because what I normally respond to is when someone looks really effortless and deconstructed, beauty-wise, and they’re fashion is really grand. Someone like Kate Moss is a great example.

Change, like healing, takes time.

Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on?

Debating against him is no fun, say something insulting and he looks at you like a whipped dog.

I like everything to be washable, myself included.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.