“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.”

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.

I’m far from being god, but I work god damn hard.

Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I’m a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?

I’ve always wanted to stay true to myself, and I’ve managed to do that. People have to accept that.

It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we’d play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.

As President, I will institute a procedure in which all convicted criminals will have this brass ring will be surgically implanted into their foreheads.

I submit that President Obama and all the democrat politicians that voted for Obamacare never even read the proposed law.

You know I’m not going to give you an objective view of them. But they didn’t do that about Donald Trump.

It is very important that the president thematically shows where we’re going in terms of the vision and an agenda.

The Clintons opposed gay marriage. They did don’t ask, don’t tell. They did the Defense of Marriage Act.

The fact that Abraham Lincoln ever, ever became President is either a freak accident of history… or destiny; God’s providence to America.

We have, or have had women presidents or prime ministers in Liberia, Chile, Germany, Great Britain…and yet the US of A still hasn’t had a women president. It’s just beyond my thinking. Look at Congress.

[The Maldives] they’ve become deeply politically engaged – just for instance, the president taught his whole cabinet to scuba dive so they could hold an underwater cabinet meeting along their dying coral reef and pass a 350 resolution to send to the U.N.