Without no disrespect to any artist, there's a lot of degrading music out there as far as degrading the culture and degrading society as well. That's individuals that choose to make that kind of music.

I love, you know, a lot of jazz, John Coltrane.

I love Kanye for that. Being a producer, making beats, and being a rapper. He does it all.

I always went left to what everybody else was doing. I'm used to going against the grain.

I love Jay-Z, I love Kanye, and I praise the way he's been able to bring more business out of the jungle.

I was always a laid-back, subdued person, and I just try to let that speak through my music.

When I broke up with Eric B., I went on a little hiatus. Then all I was trying do is find producers. It's real hard, man.

One of the main reasons why it didn't work out for me and Aftermath is because I felt my music should sound one way, and they felt it should sound another. But, I learned a lot from watching Dre, and when I left California, I knew it was time for me to get my own label.

I'm more of a wordsmith, so I like taking different words and trying to see what I can do with them - as many things as possible.

People think the older you get, the wacker you get. I think the older I get, the better I get.

My kids listen to rap, so I try to keep up with as much as I can.

I was an athlete in college - a quarterback, a leader - so people telling me what to do doesn't work.

I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.

I love what I do. I'm still humble.

I try to support my kids in what they do and, at the same time, not push them towards anything.

Maybe I'm too sensitive to the struggle, but I think a lot of people that listen to music are trying to escape.

When you're dealing with a bunch of different producers, you gotta make sure the chemistry fits.

I'm a fan of hip-hop as well. I like everybody who keeps the game on their toes and keep it pushing.

We need the media to know that some of us are really passionate about music.

Don't even go to the studio if you don't think that your music's going to do something. You're wasting your time and my time.

In New York, they kind of rode with me from day one: they understand who I am.

Sometimes I write from the end of the verse to the beginning of the verse.

Lil Wayne is doing his thing, and so is Drake.

You've really got to appreciate an artist that's really outspoken and feels like his music can change the world.

I had nothing but respect for Pac.

Music, life, a lot of the things that we go through in the world, a lot of questions that we have about the world inspires me.

I'm definitely one of them artists that loves putting the track on and having fun with it, but in my own way.

I know how to read music, watching my mom and listening to Mom play music.

You grow, you mature, you live, and you learn. You get a little wiser, and you learn better ways to handle things.

My thing was, I loved music. I played music: I played the saxophone. So the little bit of music knowhow I had, I tried to implement that in every thing I did, from my style, my cadence, the way I tried to pause and stagnate it; that all came from John Coltrane and listening to jazz albums. Trying to rhyme like a jazz player.

When you look at hip-hop, I want to do that: to spit fire and take our best from the ashes to build our kingdom; to recognize all the regional styles, conscious lyrics, the tracks, underground, mainstream, the way we treat each other. Lose the garbage and rebuild our scene.

I love what I live, and I live Islam, so I applied it to everything I do. I applied it to my rhymes, and I felt that I wanted the people to know what I knew.

When you listen to old-school music, you can smell your mother's food in the kitchen. You can feel where you was when you first heard that song. That's what's beautiful about music. It's for everyone, but we all have individual memories that make us love it.

When I started rhyming, my favorite rhythms were from John Coltrane and some of the things he did on sax. And certain rhythms that I hear on drums, I try to emulate with my words, dropping on the same patterns that them beats or them notes would hit.

My mother sang jazz and opera - she even performed at the Apollo on Amateur Night.

I stick to my guns - that's what keeps me going as an artist. Stevie Wonder never changed from what he wanted to do, and each new album that came along was dope.

Eminem is a master.

Jada, Styles P, the LOX, period. You throw on one of their joints... I'm in the whip; I try to keep my cool in the whip. I don't like bouncing around, getting my crazy on, but it's certain joints you gotta wild out. Roll the window down, blast the joints, let it be heard. That's one of them groups that bang it out.

We gotta let hip-hop grow. We gotta let it go through its different phases throughout the different places that's accepting it.

No Doubt is one of the groups that I think everybody listens to, man, and everybody loves Gwen Stefani.

New York is responsible for bringing that raw, that real gritty hip-hop, because we... originated it.

I don't believe in writer's block. I'll get stuck, but being stuck, I'll still write a verse. If you know where you're going, you can always start from there and work your way back.

Maino is an artist that I feel walks what he talks - you can tell what he raps about and what he's been through is very similar. You've got a lot of rappers that rap about what they've heard or seen, but I think Maino is one of the rappers that has actually lived it.

You know, I got kids. I got sons, and I try to tell them, 'Look, man, when you in the car and you get pulled over, hands on the steering wheel. 'Yes, sir. No sir.' Your job is to either wind up in jail, so I can come get you, or be able to pull off. That's your job.'

Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.

You can't have 12 records on your album and none of them sound alike. You gotta kind of have something to make them say, 'That sounds like Rakim.'

I'm very smart with my paper! I stopped buying things for myself a long time ago - now I just buy things for my kids or my wife.

Hip-hop has taken a lot of different routes throughout the years, man. I've been around since 1986.

The golden age was when people were starting to understand what hip-hop was and how to use it. I was lucky to come up then. Everybody wanted to be original and have substance; it was somewhat conscious... There was an integrity that people respected.

To know that I was being heard on the radio, it made me feel as if I was, I guess, spread across New York. It was incredible.