I'm a young dude from Chicago who grew up with Kanye as my image of hip-hop. Finding your voice in a room where you have to challenge Kanye is scary - but it's also life-affirming.

There's always been a quiet conversation and joke that if you're not hard, if you're not from impoverished neighborhoods, if you're not certain constructs of a black stereotype, then you not black.

There's a larger conversation we need to have about the role of police officers, their relationship to the people as enemy or executioner, when they're not supposed to be either.

I would never run for any office or government position. I'm not into it.

I think politics is a reason why a lot of stuff doesn't get done. There's a lot of favors, and a lot of people are held back by their intentions of being re-elected or the things that they owe their party or constituents.

I think when you're in my position as an artist, I can say what I want and talk about the issues that matter.

God and my dad gave me the gift of gab. I know how to finagle.

I like the fact that some of your favorite Broadway musicals are not made into movies.

That's what I've always wanted to do - work with my favorite writers and make something from scratch with them that we can feel like didn't exist before we came in the room.

There are cases where you can say a lot more in a hook than you can by making things more complex in a verse.

Being in the space that I am as a writer, and just as a black dude in America, there's this push to be cool or be what you're expected to be. There's a need for a song that puts that in perspective. I think that's an important thing for young children to hear growing up.

People don't want rap to be anything other than it is. But genres expand. My contributions, no matter how they sound, will always be rap, because they'll always be black.

Mixtapes have always been a guerrilla-style means of moving music.

I don't have to carry myself as anybody that I'm not, and people picked up on it.

There is a multitude of experiences that make up the black experience.

I hate that when you introduce yourself, and you're a rapper, sometimes you gotta say, 'I'm a musician.' Or, 'I'm an artist.' 'I'm a recording artist.' 'I'm a vocalist.'

I used to always rock a cap when I was in high school and get them taken away. It was an excessive amount. Like, so often that, at the end of each school year, there would be a box of all the confiscated caps. After they gave back a few caps to other kids, they would just give me the box because the rest were all my hats.

I don't consider being a musician the same thing as being a celebrity.

I don't necessarily think, as a person of influence, that it's always my job to influence people regarding my opinion.

My grandmother is a huge part of my life. She's just a great woman: a woman of the church.

I think, as a black man, I have a responsibility to have knowledge and have an opinion.

There was a point where I just did not care about my body.

I was a mad, impressionable kid, and every skit from 'The College Dropout' was telling me how I didn't need school.

When I was working on 'Coloring Book,' I knew that I wanted it to be a beacon for independent artists and music makers with their own agenda.

One of my biggest fears with 'Coloring Book' was that it would be labeled. I hate labels. I never sought out for people to recognize it as a gospel album.

I think that's always the goal of art, is to make people ask themselves questions.

Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way. It is all those little steps that make the journey complete.

Thankfully I have an ecosystem of in-laws, parents and husband, who are my rocks.

Adaptability is a great asset to have because life is so unpredictable, and things can change overnight for any of us.

Even if it does not become cashless economy, it will become a less cash economy, and I think that itself is going to be a good and big achievement, and I think we are, as a country, gone through many of large changes, and ICICI has been a leader in many of them.

Take destiny in your own hands.

To reap this demographic dividend, we need to enable the youth to acquire skills required to get the job or become self-employed.

India's growth drivers are actually two growth drivers. One is consumption, which arises out of our demographic advantage. And the other is the investments. Because we need a lot of investment in the country.

I always believe that, as you start out, while you should have a big dream - a big goal - but it's also important to move step by step. So, you know, frankly, if you ask me, when I started as a management trainee in 1984, I don't know that I really thought that I would become the CEO.

You can maintain work-life balance even while pursuing careers.

It's not that the regulator doesn't want the banking industry to grow. The growth of the industry has always been in relation to the GDP (gross domestic product) growth.

The growth that we are targeting for our bank is in line with the banking industry.

Don't cut corners or compromise to achieve your dreams.

If you take existing ideas and make them affordable and scalable, you substantially change business models.

We have to understand that India is a complex country. Everything takes time for the real impact to get translated to the economy.

Remember that relationships are important and have to be nurtured and cherished. Also keep in mind that a relationship is a two way street, so be ready to give a relationship just as you would expect the other person to be giving to you.

I think competition is good. It finally delivers the best value to the customer, and I think it keeps all the players on their toes.

Resolution can be in any form - S4A, SDR or restructuring - but we need an enabling environment where bankers feel comfortable to take decisions and where they also feel obliged to implement decisions in a timely manner.

My father, in a way, was a mentor in the way he instilled the basic values and ethics in me. My mother was a mentor by showing me an example to say that if women have tenacity, they can achieve whatever they have to.

An entrepreneur, whether man or woman, has to be willing to take help, whether financial or technical, to grow his or her business.

Whenever there is a challenge, the key is not to get consumed by the challenge but actually to learn from it.

I believe in fate, but I also believe that hard work and diligence plays a very important role in our lives.

Any of our businesses will not exist in the form that is today, will not exist in the same form one year later, two years later... We have to worry about the disruptions in the business models and the practices.

As we were growing retail, and it was a huge growth phase, it was very important to keep our quality under control. Therefore, it was not just distribution, not just back-office operations, but also the risk-management practices. And these we learned together, supported by technology.

ICICI has been a meritocracy. So, a huge amount a lot of responsibilities, big roles, challenges, have been given to women, not because they are men or women or so on, but they were just given to people who have - who the organization believes has the capability to perform.