I was raised a black child in the South, where you're indoctrinated into a religion that an oppressor gave you.

I grew up working class in Atlanta.

I will never take a day off policing the people we pay and keep a public trust with. I will use my camera, my pen, my pad, and my network to do my part, to make sure that Americans will no longer fear their government. Or its employees. They work for us - not the other way around.

The best advice that I've gotten from Nas is honestly to just be me and to keep staying true to myself. It took me a long time to figure out how to pop, but then, when you get famous, people are kind of like, 'Oh, well, we don't want as much of you.'

I write in the booth and memorize in rehearsals.

I don't want to be married to any ideology, because life is a lot more fluid than that, and I think that we're trained and conditioned in this country to think in teams.

A lot of time, when you're poor and you ain't got but 15, 20 bucks in your pocket - if you can't change your shoes, you can change your look with a haircut.

A lot of times, elections are lost, and the hope of the public is lost because they don't turn out.

I cannot lie: as good as it feels to get my deserved props, the best part of reading social media after I meet folks is reading, 'Mike was a nice guy.'

Those 'Pledge' records did good for me, and they're the foundation that this Killer Mike is built on, but I was judging myself on physical sales and didn't understand that music sales were declining overall.

Being a cop must be hard. My dad was one and never wanted any of his children to follow in his footsteps.

The way you start to break down systemic racism is to start building individual relationships with people who are not like you.

I have hurt my community. I have to look myself in the mirror and know that, and I have to own that in order to grow past that.

My hope is that very young people in America who have experience with the streets, hip-hop, college, higher learning will fuse all that together. I just want to be the music that can relate to both sides, that stitch together their lives or represents their experiences.

I'm a student of Ice Cube and Scarface, which means the stuff I rap about is not radio-friendly, and it's very opinionated. and it's very much from the perspective of a black man in America, and our opinion ain't always popular when we have a political opinion.

We have essentially gone from being communities that were policed by people from the communities to being communities that are policed by strangers, and that's no longer a community: that's an area that's under siege.

This is a beautiful life we lead in spite of whatever things come against us or whatever team loses or wins.

The fact that I'm in a group that inspires others artists is just heaven to me.

I maintain hope that this country can be what it's supposed to be.

I've been a sinner and a saint. If you've been a saint all your life, it's pretty easy to sleep at night. If you've been a sinner, you're just as comfortable in it.

You a role model by way of someone will model after your role. They'll model themselves after what they perceive is success. That doesn't mean they take your morality and virtue seriously. They want what you want, and they're willing to do what you do to get it.

Government should fear the people, not the other way around.

Freedom is not something you're even trying to fight for; you are free. Go. Make sure you live free every day.

Ultimately, Dead Prez should have went multi-platinum. But when people didn't rally around them, I knew the black hip-hop audience had become far less politicized.