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

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

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.

Eminem is a master.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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 had nothing but respect for Pac.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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