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By the time I was a teenager, when I went outside the house, it was about hip-hop all the time. Nothing but hip-hop, block parties.

I grew up in Chicago, so hip-hop has always been a part of my life.

The effect hip-hop had on me was enormous. I was exposed to it by happenstance. My father worked at a radio station in New York called WKTU Disco 92. It was the first radio station in New York City to play disco in the late '70s.

I love hip hop. It's such an appendage for me. It's something that's always shaped my experience out in the world.

I've always loved hip-hop, since I was a kid, that's the music that I loved. I think everyone of our generation kind of fantasized about hip-hop in some ways.

As a white teen, I was very drawn to hip-hop culture, almost to the point of disappearing in it - there was a sense of having no sense of authenticity except this one that wasn't mine.

We have this really retro vibe and style of songwriting and, personally, I wasn't embracing the current state of music until I fell in love with hip-hop. It felt good to suddenly embrace where music was headed, and I think hip-hop is the best at that, because it feels so progressive and everybody wants to be the best.

I didn't grow up listening to hip-hop since I was six.

I knew when I went to a very hippie high school that focused on music that I wanted to do something in the industry.