How could you possibly call something science fiction at this point unless it has to do with something that hasn't been done? When I write about 'Drones over Brooklyn,' it's not like I'm making something up. Drones are policing American cities.

Darkness does not truly have sway. I think that it's weak.

I've never had a huge collection of records; I've never been a beat digga. I never been one of these guys who drives cross-country and knows some one-legged sailor who has a boat parked off some pier with a thousand Russian funk records that he stole from the Red Army in 1972.

I had a boom box with a dual cassette deck and a mic, so I used to make pause tapes. I think a lot of people started like that because it was all I had. I would just take rap records that I liked and just loop the beat by pressing pause and record and make, like, five minutes of these beats.

If there's any credence to the guy who wrote 'Drones Over Blkyn' a year before drones were flying over Brooklyn, then listen to me: we're going to be in fascist police state.

I grew up on listening to, like, Mantronix and BDP and EPMD and Kool G Rap and Ultramag and Public Enemy and Fat Boys and Run DMC and a lot of those early records, those Rubin-era records. Those were always snare- and stab-heavy records.

My videogame mind died after they stopped making wonderful escape worlds - every game just turned into me training to be in the army. But I used to love the Oddworld and 'Abe's Exoddus' and 'Abe's Oddysee' for Playstation.

I don't ever really feel guilty about music, quite frankly. When you're younger, you think that anything you don't like, you have to hate. I'm so far beyond that perspective. Although, I will say I resent Bruno Mars for making me like him as much as I do. I wish that he wasn't so likeable.

Personally more so than shock, I think, rap music has to be born of rebellion.

One of the reasons why I thought it was a good decision to put Def Jux on hold is that it's a hell of a lot easier to dismiss something as a movement than to dismiss individuals making good records.

I'm really pretty ridiculous about how much I work on my music, and I don't look at it as necessarily a good quality. I look at it as a side effect of my apparent insanity. It is what it is, man.

I really want to produce a record for Mary J. Blige.

You don't have to say something directly to affect someone. You can make a piece of music without words that can capture a feeling of tragedy or struggle or anger or triumph. It's the translation of the human experience into another form.

I've been listening to this group called the Veils, which I kind of discovered late. I've been really obsessed with this album that they have called 'Nux Vomica,' and I just think it's a brilliantly produced and written rock record.

If I can't work, I don't know what to do with myself.

I've lived in New York City all my life. I love New York City; I've never moved from New York City. Have I ever thought about moving out of New York? Yeah, sure. I need about $10 million to do it right, though.

It's pretty cool being 40 and having your blow-up moment.

I think it's impossible for hip-hop to be a dying art form.

My love of Seagal is ridiculous. Like, I love this man. I love how ridiculous he is. I mean, he made an album called 'Songs From The Crystal Cave.'

I was obsessed with Philip K. Dick.

There's something in the German language that makes you feel like you're getting a hug and a backstab at the same time.

New York is just an energy. There's a beauty to the way it's laid out: the architecture, the way the planning is. It's huge, but you really do get to experience more than your own existence here. It's kinda hard to isolate yourself from different types of people, different types of ideas or communities.

I tried to get Steven Seagal for my 'Stepfather Factory' video in 2002.

I don't necessarily think the way people do, but that's not my problem. My problem is not to reinforce or destroy any ideas anyone might have about me, how I do what I do, what my intentions are, the way that I do it. My only job, as far as I can see, is to do the music that I want to do.

When I'm not feeling something, I have a very hard time doing it.

I just love Steven Seagal for his pure - his perspective on what being a hero is: just a purely evil, cruel perspective.

I think that Gordon Ramsay is maybe one of the most entertaining people ever on television. And I would love to pretend to be Gordon Ramsay and walk into a restaurant uninvited and attempt to make them change their menu. It's just a personal fantasy of mine.

I'm not a 'dystopian, futuristic master': I'm a schnook walking the street. It's an insane reality we're living in, and I'm just trying to translate it for myself.

The thing about Steven Seagal is that he clearly wants to be a great person, but he just doesn't know how.

Rap music deserves truth, and it deserves spontaneity.

The people who talk the most about God are people who are the least like God.

We all want recognition and validation to an extent for our art, but greatness as a trade for decency is a risky proposition. In my life, I try to leave the people I encounter with the feeling that they have been respected and treated with warmth and appreciation.

'The Venture Bros' are my jam.

I think any teenager, any single parent household teenager growing up in New York City, will probably go through tumultuous years. I definitely did. It all sort of righted itself once I definitively got on the path of being a musician or, like, following that directly.

I literally have a massive database of cat sounds.

If you live in a crowded area of Brooklyn or Manhattan, having a car is a hindrance. It doesn't even make sense. I basically grew up all my life without a car.

I was raised by women. The men in my life were either not there or not good when they were there.

There's a lot of pretense out there. It can be exhausting. When people see something genuine, even if it's something as simple as two people actually being friends, actually enjoying what they're doing, or actually standing up for each other, that translates in a big way.

I don't hate Jay-Z. I think he's dope.

I have a tendency to dip my foot in self-destructive behavior.

The name of a cat has to come from something that just occurs to you by interacting with the cat.

Def Jam is the reason why I started a label.

I strongly believe in the art form of the album.

You put a piece of music out, and it's not in your hands anymore, and that's cool with me.

I remember one day sitting in the mirror with a saxophone, just looking at myself, being like, 'I can't do this; this is ridiculous.'

A lot of the attitude I used to have about being from New York when I was younger just disappeared when I started to the rest of the world.

I'm not mad at digital media at all; I just see the importance and beauty of physical media.

I just like heavy music in general - from heavy rock and heavy metal and heavy rap and heavy everything. I've always been attracted to it.

When writing songs, especially if they're kinda semi-true to you, a lot of people hide behind whatever their idea of themselves is in the record, and every now and then, you might make a song that exposes something a little too much about you, and there's a part that doesn't want yourself to be exposed.

I'm a believer in air bags.