I want people to feel the heat while they walk down the street and they’re just kickin’ it.

I’m not a person that’s walkin’ down the street looking mean all day.

My Struggles is a record close to me. It’s about what I went through at home living with an abusive father.

I want to be cutting-edge.

Music should be your escape.

The biggest surprise with the show is I didn’t think it was gonna be that emotional. I thought it was just gonna be a regular reality show.

I wasn’t born a superstar.

When you turn on your radio, you don’t always want to hear about someone shootin’ some person. Even if that’s the lifestyle they live, people don’t always want to hear it.

I’m not tryin’ to come off as the best lyricist.

And basically I always said when I was little that if I ever became successful or a celebrity, I would buy her this huge house and she would never have to work anymore. And I’ve...

No, because I don’t want to hear what’s hot and feel I have to copy it. I’ll just make up my own thing.

Everybody is doing the same old thing.

Now everybody’s sampling.

Hip-hop is definitely not what it used to be, which was creative, original music.

One thing about white people is that in their videos they don’t care. They can go out in cut-up jeans and do a video, and it’ll be large.

I got a mother who’s very strong after taking the whippings that she took from my father.

What my home life is like now is great.

I feel blessed and I’ve learned so much. I just wanted to make a record where people can forget their troubles and go buck-wild.

I love my mother. She’s my first love. She has been through a lot and is a sole survivor.

When it comes to size, most people don’t want to see themselves looking bigger than what they are.

I want to make something commercial that people can pick up on.

I mean, when it’s time to rhyme rhyme, I can get down for mine.

When you sit down now and really listen, it doesn’t give off the same feel as it did back when Run DMC and those guys were rhymin’.

I’ve always had a lot of creative impact on the music with Timbaland.

I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there’s some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that’s really important to us, and music is all we’ve really...

You have to be ready to sing and perform at any time.

It’s just that back then we didn’t know that was considered being a coproducer. I would sit on the side and say what I wanted musically, but at the time we thought if you aren’t...