I feel like my peers now are artists like Madonna and the Stones, Michael Jackson and Prince. These are people who were able to take their careers beyond the normal here-today-gone-tomorrow life span.

What I don't do is try to like become whoever I'm rapping with. The people who go get an LL album want to hear LL.

I've never been one to have to manipulate women. I always want it to be like a mutual thing, like everybody loves everybody.

At fourteen, I started sending out demo tapes.

I've been training as an actor for six years. Nobody goes to acting school for six years. I mean, the college course is only four years! I absolutely trained.

I think in order to keep America great, we have to keep America creative.

I'm a real person that cares about his art and cares about what he's doing. I have a heart and a soul and I want to touch people and give.

What is more important than the name is that people know that I really like acting, I enjoy it and I want people to know that I am serious. The name thing: I will always be L.L. Cool J.

I think the key to working out is for people to think of water - just allow the workouts to fill out the cracks in your lives and seep into wherever you can fit it in.

If you do cardio one day and the next day you can do weights, do it that way. If you need to do it at night or in the morning, do it that way. Whatever you need to get it done, just get it done.

Let me tell you something - compared to a TV-drama production schedule, touring is not strenuous.

What I say on a record and what I say off a record is two different things. And that's always been the case. There's a difference between confidence on a record and arrogance.

To me, my peers are Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger. I'm not talking age-wise, but in terms of careers. Madonna. Those are my peers. And I'm okay with that.

Art is about imagination. When you look at a picture from Salvador Dali, that's about imagination. When you look at Picasso, that's about imagination. Doing stuff from your heart.

What you do in your art - TV, music, film stuff - touches people. And they want to touch you. So that's a blessing. I'm okay with it.

I don't look back. I don't live my life in the rear-view mirror because, if you do, you're bound to end up wrapped around a pole somewhere.

I love my fans, I love my music - I have no reason to retire.

I think the stuff that plays on the radio, the majority of it is for teenagers, which is okay. That's what pop radio is about. And some of it is great, and some of it is not.

I think having kids just makes you want to do things to help people. You have children, and you see how fragile and innocent and helpless they are when they first start out. If they are going to be a victim of whatever they are surrounded by, I just do everything I can to try to make whatever change I can.

I have loved music so much from when I was little and I don't know whether it was because I saw my dad doing it and then I got the idea, I don't know what came first... But I always had a hairbrush in the mirror singing. I was always with him backstage; I would go out and be pulled in for the last song.

When I'm doing interviews, I'm doing interviews, and when I am writing, I'm writing. I sit there with a musician and I write. It's the same process since I started writing in my twenties. I like to come in and leave with a finished song.

Making a decision to be a public figure isn't their choice right now. I don't think it's fair. Even though they're beautiful and I love them, they haven't made that decision yet. I've been chased through airports with a screaming baby because the photographers are ruthless, and they want the picture.

When I first started performing, some people were there just out of curiosity. I think that happens less often then you'd think, but when it is happening it's very obvious and I can tell what's going on. I had some of that in the beginning, but I think that ultimately I got a pretty strong fan base based on just my personality alone, and my honesty, my music. So it wasn't based on anything else, and I did notice if someone else came looking for something else, they'd probably leave, or complain it was too loud or something.

I'm trying to have my own thing, and I don't know if it's even possible. I didn't realize so many people actually think I'm trying to be like my dad. I read comments like 'She's no Elvis.' I'm not trying to be. I never set out to be.