“I like the way hip-hop is now. It’s grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it.”

I can’t control what people think. They know who I am.

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.

How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio.

I’m not really thinking much… Just sort of, trying to feel.

One feels that way as long as this pot of ‘I’ exists. When the ‘I’ disappears, what is remains. That cannot be described in words.

You know you’ve got it, if it makes you feel good.

If I had one day when I didn’t have to be all confused and didn’t have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know?

The program for this evening is not new. You’ve seen this entertainment through and through.

I’m just doing what I wanted to and what feels right and not settling for bullshit and it worked. How can they be mad at that?

You feel your strength in the experience of pain.