I feel like the downfall of any person is the second an artist starts celebrating their work themselves, that becomes problematic.

The only mofos in my circle are people that I can learn from.

Hip-hop is an instant gratification, winners and losers circle, and often those who are losing give up after three or four, five years.

When you live your life through records, the records are a record of your life.

Time will tell. Time is always telling. Time never stops telling.

Funk never dies. It is eternal. It just smells a little different from time to time.

How do you plan a rebirth? I'm not sure you do. You just stand in the darkness until you can't endure it any long, and then you move forward until you're standing in the light.

Music has the power to stop time. But music also keeps time.

Just because the laws were changed doesn't mean that the attitudes have changed.

Hip-hop is so much about character and caricature that people just see you as a character. Very rarely are you flesh and bone to people.

We have to get back to "we." It's important to get back to "we" not just "I."

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.

There is honey in this land sweeter than any I know of, and I have cut cane in places where the dirt itself tasted like sugar, so that's saying a heap.

Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones to genius.

We come in many different shapes and sizes, and we need to support each other and our differences. Our beauty is in our differences.

Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do?

I will walk on no grave of Ulster's honoured dead to do a deal with the IRA or the British government.

Art is not only about angst.

Young feller, you will never appreciate the potentialities of the English language until you have heard a Southern mule driver search the soul of a mule.

How do we get out of our small mind? When we enquire into the core of our existence. What is life? Who am I? This spirit of self-inquiry can awaken something inside you.