I don't sit down and write a song, and then slam down the phone like, 'We got another one!' and pop some champagne. It's like if someone's writing a novel: You write a series of drafts.

I remember when I was 15 or 16 years old, I couldn't imagine what life would be like past the age of 30, just because I didn't know that many men who had lived beyond their 20s.

We record in the spirit of the Berry Gordy camp and Gamble & Huff, where people were writing up to a dozen quality songs within a day because the competition was that hard.

We don't try to please everyone. Those older fans who expect something from The Roots are a tad more important to me than getting new fans.

For some music, lyrically, the best move is to keep it simple in what it is that you are saying, and just kind of come across in your rhythm and the way that you lock in on the music.

You are an instrument if you understand your voice and how to use it - this sound, that sound and certain ranges and different pitch. Within that I try to find a rhythm and play the voice as if it was a horn.

I like that the hard-core ruffians, the street thugs come up to me and say, 'Man, you killed it with Adele.'

Everything I do has been a lifetime in the making.

I miss being out on the road.

As we get further into our career we're figuring out how to become more efficient as artists, and doing so many different things is testament to our cohesiveness as the Roots.

My children have a world of opportunities that were not available to me. My kids have no idea about going without - there's no desire or need they have that hasn't been fulfilled, which is a blessing.

I work well within The Roots because I can let my music speak for itself while Ahmir does most of the press and the promotion and the brand-building because he enjoys that.

I'm not driven by the spotlight and I'm not that outgoing.

At this point, in 2008, if you put out a book, a movie, or write a verse, paint a painting, it should have some sort of social value.

I love Trader Joe's.

I grew up in the neighborhood where 'Rocky' came from.

We've been branded 'the thinking man's hip-hop.' So the music's got to have some level of maturity.

I feel like visual art, the culinary arts, the theatrical arts - the medium changes, the tools that you use to tell whatever the story changes, but you're still all telling stories.

If hip-hop is dead, then let it rest in peace and let's move on to something else.

I do not seem like a funny guy.

There probably won't be an animated The Roots or Black Thought as there was, say, an animated Michael Jackson when ‘The Jackson 5' cartoon show was on when we were kids.

The Tonight Show' afforded us the opportunity to work with The Muppets and other ‘Sesame Street' characters, and we always had the desire to do something that spoke to young people.

I move in silence. I don't like puttin' too much of me out there to be dissected, analyzed.

You can only be the great artist for so long - come out with effort after effort that garners all this praise.