America to me is where I grew up: in Brooklyn, around other black and Latino people who helped and loved each other. I just want to show people that America doesn't have to be this 'I'm in the NRA, blah blah blah' type of place.

Originally my entire goal with music was for it to be my job. When I sit down to make a beat, I wanna know that I'm gonna get paid from it, and that I can pay my bills and still have money left over to be a person.

I am used to making people upset and uncomfortable with my lyrical content when it comes to music.

I just wanted to write about music if I wasn't going to make it.

I don't know if there's anything Kanye West can do that can erase his influence on me, because it's here. It's already there. He can't even reverse that himself, because it's just so ingrained in me.

The first time I ever went to Texas was on a bus with curtains draped over the windows. I just joined the military and got shipped off to basic training in San Antonio.

My first live performance was when I was in the military. I went to some bar, and they had open mics. You could just sign up and perform. Nobody cared. Nobody liked it.

After the military, I floundered around between jobs for a while, and there was an opportunity for me to go live in Japan. I was living on the Okinawa Airport Base, off the grid, no real address.

We need true free thinkers, people who really say what they feel and have good, genuine intentions.

Baltimore has the hardest work ethic out of all cities. It makes you want to work harder.

When I first started rapping, I used to just jock Jay Z super hard. Back when I was like 14 and 15, it was, like, Jay Z, Ice Cube, and Lil Wayne.

Most of my experience with racism comes from living in the South.

I started producing when I was listening to The Diplomats. The first time I heard Cam'ron was 'Dead or Alive.'

There's just more emotion and raw feeling in Baltimore music. It can't be copied.

Liberals allow right-wingers on their platforms to have a 'civilized discussion,' but there's no reasoning with racists. I don't want them to have a platform that humanizes them. I want to talk down to them and meet them exactly where they are, with absolutely no respect.

The U.S. army is pretty terrible. Never join it!

The idea of me being an icon or something is a very funny thing, just because of my own weird insecurities. But, yeah... probably because I toiled away being nothing for so long.

I'm always just gonna do whatever I want. I don't feel any pressure to appeal to anyone in particular.

Everything I say is true and from the heart. I exaggerate some things, but the core base of it is just facts.

People in rock had this idea that rappers aren't talented. In my opinion we're better writers, we think deeper, and our concepts are harder - Rap evolves faster than any other genre.

On 'Black Ben Carson,' I had strict no melody thing. I wanted straight, raw, rugged noise music.

As a black person, I have two parties to choose from: liberal and conservative. If I choose to be a liberal - regardless of who I choose - I'm picking the lesser of two evils in my mind basically.

I'm going to shock you with the truth. I'm just going to give it to you raw, and however you take it, I'm just going to watch your reaction.

For me, sampling is a high art. Most people don't see it that way, but it's a beautiful thing. I wouldn't know anything about music if it wasn't for samples.