“I want to own my masters. That’s the main thing–owning all my music.”

Being old didn’t seem like an accomplishment. Everyone I knew who was old was like sick or broke. It just didn’t look appealing until I moved to L.A. and started interacting with people who were 50+ and still kicking it, having money, living large.

I started off making beats when I was like 12. Then when I linked with people who make beats full time, I was like, ‘Bet, now I can focus on writing and singing.’

I was reading Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’. It’s one of my favourites.

Me and Goldlink have known of each other for a minute and our managers know each other so they set up a studio session. When we got in the studio, we was cool; we’re from the same area so we have a lot in common.

In order for people to take what you say seriously, they have to know who you are as a person.

Before anything, I wanted to be a rapper. I used to make beats and I would start singing to layer my beats and that’s kind of how I realized I could sing.

I feel like any way you can get the message to resonate, I’m all for it.

I still got bars, I just use ’em differently. I’d say I’m a better singer than I am a rapper at this point because I’ve been sharpening my sword.

Music is my one opportunity to let out how I’m feeling when I’m not talking to a chick or my mom, you know what I mean? It’s just venting.

There’s the hype stuff that people love for five minutes and then there’s the stuff that changes cultures and shifts how you look at music. And then there’s that rare point where that hype stuff changes the game.

You work on something for so long that you become numb to it. Like, you don’t even know how to listen to it because you listened to it so many times.

You gotta question the purpose you serve for those who invite themselves into your life. Learn who you are and always question the motive. No one knows you the way you do.

I don’t wake up thinking about the genre of R&B as a whole. I just make music.

Don’t stop until you get where you’re trying to go.

We’re products of this world we were born into. We all battle our own demons. Everyone is troubled in the dark, but, please just stop & think about the babies. They’re gonna be here long after we leave.

When you’re initially making music, you’re kind of just shooting at the air.

No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, who’s made the master of his destiny.

You can’t mastermind everything. You’ll go crazy. Just show up and play.

The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self.

The storm is master. Man, as a ball, is tossed twixt winds and billows.

Man, living, feeling man, is the easy sport of the over-mastering present.

I have a fierce temper. I’ve mastered it over the years, but when I’m angry, no one can force me to do anything I don’t want to.

He cannot complain of a hard sentence, who is made master of his own fate.

I wanted to become an engineer, or get a masters in business. But I had the opportunity to do films when I was about 25 and it was a great way to express myself.