“N.Y. hip-hop is ok, but we gotta become brave again; we have to be brave enough and do something new – that’s what New York is about… New.”

I definitely have plans to do more collaboration albums in the future.

I wish the music business was a much easier thing, but you know what? Nothing easy is worth anything. So it is what it is.

I never cared for politics before Barack Obama. I never thought it mattered to people like me.

I think I’m that guy. I’m still blessed with the opportunity to make music and pass out a message like, ‘Life is good,’ to the world.

The sound of the ’90s, to me, is a combination of soul and street – it’s a feeling.

Hip-hop artists, especially the older ones, are the ones who knew hip-hop was a worldwide phenomenon before the mainstream caught on, so hip-hop artists are forward thinkers. We want to stay with the new.

DJs need to challenge us rappers. They got so much power, they need to challenge us.

I don’t know who I will collaborate with, but there’s a great chance of something happening.

My record company had to beg me to stop filmin’ music videos in the projects.

Africa has been going through so much for so many years; it’s time that it stands up the way other nations are standing up.

Once you make it to your point of making it, you’ll appreciate the struggle.

Somebody like me who knows it firsthand and could relate… I had a best friend killed, plenty other friends killed. I been through it. I seen it.

Stillmatic’ is the rebirth of ‘Illmatic,’ my first debut album to come out in 1994. ‘Stillmatic’ is me coming full circle in my career and with everything, and just bringing pure hip-hop back.

I don’t have time for the news clippings. I got my own mission.

I love the art world, I love art galleries, I love what it means – I love art.

Hip-hop is really standoffish. It’s really competitive and it’s really about who’s number one all the time. Sometimes it gets out of hand.

The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable.

You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child.

Accept yourself within you and the entire world becomes totally acceptable.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish that, when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens the water about him till he becomes invisible.

Everything became exchangeable because everything became a commodity.

It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.

There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile.