When 'Paul's Boutique' came out, I was one of the fans that didn't get it.
Trust is hard to come by. That's why my circle is small and tight. I'm kind of funny about making new friends.
The kids are old enough now - I just want to let them be kids. I don't want to comment on them too much. They're at an age where I just want to let them be kids.
It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.
When you're a little kid, you don't see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.
My father? I never knew him. Never even seen a picture of him.
If you're the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I'm a parent. I have daughters.
Somewhere deep down there's a decent man in me, he just can't be found.
Hip-hop saved my life, man. It's the only thing I've ever been even decent at. I don't know how to do anything else.
Personally, I just think rap music is the best thing out there, period. If you look at my deck in my car radio, you're always going to find a hip-hop tape; that's all I buy, that's all I live, that's all I listen to, that's all I love.
The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.
I come from Detroit where it's rough and I'm not a smooth talker.
I'd go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.
I need drama in my life to keep making music.
If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.
I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There's no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.
Five or six songs leaked from the original version of 'Encore.' So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.
Say there's a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter - for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that's saying is that he's living a fantasy life of rebellion.
Honestly, I'd love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I'm doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I'm doing.
I don't know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.
