Black people need to share collective dollars and demand equal representation, and the way you do that is by controlling their own economy and putting money behind candidates.

We are raising a generation of kids where everyone gets a trophy. But in real life, everyone don't get a trophy.

I've been a music fan all my life, and you know the difference when the musicians care.

People don't accredit Killer Mike and El-P with having the humanity that we do. They don't understand that the darkness and the anger that we rap about comes from a place of love, care, and concern.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a revolutionary, simple and plain.

I believe being honourable lasts longer than rapping good.

America has done a great job making brutally fast, stripped-down cars.

For all my proclivities for thuggery, I am a typical middle-class dad. I'm a gangsta rap suburban father!

We need more Rocafellas; we need more Bad Boys.

What's more American than young people speaking their mind over things they had to create over pots and pans and electronically because music was taken out of schools? What's more American than making something out of nothing? What's more gospel than rap music?

I have matured as a man to understand where my suspicion of women comes from and how that has everything to do with me and nothing to do with them. I have to deal with that.

I like the New York style of funk, the California style of funk, but the South I never felt like - and Atlanta particularly - got the credit for taking their lessons and progressing on it.

I'm happy to be for people what Scarface, Ice Cube, and Rakim have been for me.

I take being an American very seriously.

I've been in the newspapers since I was about 15 - not for rapping, but for real substantive stuff I was doing in the community, organizing around gang violence in the schools. So I had already made my grandma proud before I was on TV. I've always been who I am.

My rights are precious, and I value those provided to me through the United States Constitution so much.

Being in love makes you feel kind of naive.

You can't argue that hip-hop rots away the moral character of kids or rots their brain and still see middle-class white kids going to college who are listening to hip-hop. Going on to become healthy adults listening to hip-hop.

I don't understand how any black person can tell me that they're not pro-gun.

I don't know what the hell the future brings. If I did, I would play the lotto and win the mega millions and buy toy cars, real muscle cars, sneakers, and art.

I'm a Banksy fan. I'm also a fan of Chris Hobe, Mister Totem, Drew Wootten, Mad Clout, Hense and Sever, in visual and street art. And Jonathan Mannion and Shane Nash in photography.

If you don't like the NRA, get a million black people to join. Go to the convention. Realize that this ain't white people in hoods, just regular working class people like you that are probably going to be friendly and engage you. And then add your thoughts to the agenda.

Someone tried to introduce me to Michael Bloomberg, but I declined.

The police are paid by the public and carry a public trust, and they take an oath to protect us as citizens. The police have lost sight of that and must be reminded that we pay them to protect us, not to simply engage and cage us.

It's a totally different spiel when I talk at Morehouse. But when I'm talking at MIT? At the University of Cincinnati? I'm telling white people, in order to stop systemic racism, you must first befriend, become a colleague of, get to know intimately, put yourself culturally in the framework of someone who doesn't look like you.

Atlanta is unique to me. You got poor black people, but I also saw this: I saw black doctors, lawyers, educators. All you gotta do is want to be it to see it, and once you see something, it can be a reality.

I don't want to be walking around angry and feeling rage.

My ears are shot. I'm a musician.

No Child Left Behind left a lot of kids behind.

Rap is supposed to scare soccer moms.

Nas is truly one of the greatest lyricists to ever come out of Queens, which has produced more great MCs than any other borough. He's one of the greatest MCs of my lifetime and in the world. He's also a friend.

You do not fly the flags of losers over the winner's country.

I have white friends who have the Confederate flag on their license plates, and I have no issue with that if they see that as a matter of heritage. But I do not think it should ever fly over a state, city, county building, or school, for the simple reason that it represents secession from the Union.

An army took on the Union; an army lost. That nation, the Confederate States, lost. And if - that flag - in terms of publicly or state-sponsored things, or local or county or city-sponsored things - should be forever wiped from the memory, because that side lost.

My grandmother had been a part of the civil rights movement.

If we could figure out ways for kids to exit college without having the burden of debt, what we have really figured out is how to create a more fertile breeding ground for people who can think innovatively and progress us as a species.

My biggest failure was trying to start and run a music label. The music industry was dying, and I wasn't ready to help other people the way that they needed to be helped. I was trying to, and I was stifling myself with it.

Rap, to me, is communal. It's something you do with your friends. So becoming a member of a group was the dream.

I just like cars, period. I can find something to like about pretty much any car. I've had as much fun whipping around Italy in a little Mini Cooper as I've had whipping through Miami in a Bentley GT.

I used to have go-karts and mopeds and motorcycles when I was a kid. Then my grandpa let me drive a real car at about 13 or 14 and I just... I never cared about bikes again after that.

I'm a black man who grew up in America. I'm a father of four children. They don't all have the same mother. I own a business.

I'm not going to restrict myself as an artist.

In my 20s, I was just angry.

I'm trying to get more into television and film. I know, like, a million models and rappers have said that, but I actually enjoy voiceover and acting in particular.

My hair is dry. A lot of shampoos and greasers don't work with me, and so I started playing around with a chemist on a product that'll work with me.

I shouldn't have to be preparing my children that the world is going to be unfair to them for the rest of their lives.

I'm a man's man.

I don't let people talk bad about Rick Ross around me. Like, you can't do it. He owns - I've heard a legend - 30 Wing Stops in the areas he grew up near. You can never say anything about him. If that represents ten jobs per place, that's 310 jobs provided.

I've been watching wrestling since I was three years old.