I was a mad, impressionable kid, and every skit from 'The College Dropout' was telling me how I didn't need school.

There was a point where I just did not care about my body.

I think, as a black man, I have a responsibility to have knowledge and have an opinion.

My grandmother is a huge part of my life. She's just a great woman: a woman of the church.

I don't necessarily think, as a person of influence, that it's always my job to influence people regarding my opinion.

I don't consider being a musician the same thing as being a celebrity.

I used to always rock a cap when I was in high school and get them taken away. It was an excessive amount. Like, so often that, at the end of each school year, there would be a box of all the confiscated caps. After they gave back a few caps to other kids, they would just give me the box because the rest were all my hats.

I hate that when you introduce yourself, and you're a rapper, sometimes you gotta say, 'I'm a musician.' Or, 'I'm an artist.' 'I'm a recording artist.' 'I'm a vocalist.'

There is a multitude of experiences that make up the black experience.

I don't have to carry myself as anybody that I'm not, and people picked up on it.

Mixtapes have always been a guerrilla-style means of moving music.

People don't want rap to be anything other than it is. But genres expand. My contributions, no matter how they sound, will always be rap, because they'll always be black.

Being in the space that I am as a writer, and just as a black dude in America, there's this push to be cool or be what you're expected to be. There's a need for a song that puts that in perspective. I think that's an important thing for young children to hear growing up.

There are cases where you can say a lot more in a hook than you can by making things more complex in a verse.

That's what I've always wanted to do - work with my favorite writers and make something from scratch with them that we can feel like didn't exist before we came in the room.

I like the fact that some of your favorite Broadway musicals are not made into movies.

God and my dad gave me the gift of gab. I know how to finagle.

I think when you're in my position as an artist, I can say what I want and talk about the issues that matter.

I think politics is a reason why a lot of stuff doesn't get done. There's a lot of favors, and a lot of people are held back by their intentions of being re-elected or the things that they owe their party or constituents.

I would never run for any office or government position. I'm not into it.

There's a larger conversation we need to have about the role of police officers, their relationship to the people as enemy or executioner, when they're not supposed to be either.

There's always been a quiet conversation and joke that if you're not hard, if you're not from impoverished neighborhoods, if you're not certain constructs of a black stereotype, then you not black.

I'm a young dude from Chicago who grew up with Kanye as my image of hip-hop. Finding your voice in a room where you have to challenge Kanye is scary - but it's also life-affirming.

Where he tells you exactly how he views the world - just very straight Kanye, honesty that definitely gets your creativity and strong opinions out on the floor. I think it helped me find myself.