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Definitely just growing up in general influenced me; Detroit happened to be where I was. I feel like the city definitely has made an impact on my life and made me who I am. Detroit has an unmistakable soul - nobody can duplicate the soul we bring to the game. From Motown to J Dilla to Eminem to anything.

I had a lot of romanticised ideas of what Detroit was like, but I didn't get there until I was 30, and it was very different than I had imagined it.

I love coming to Detroit. First getting to be buddies with Kid Rock in the beginning, and him being really great to us, showing us love, the love of the city. I feel like it's our city now, too.

My music is the essence of Detroit. At one time, we were the center of the world, man - Motor City.

I took many trips down to New Orleans trying to experience the city as deeply as possible. I'm from Detroit so New Orleans seemed very exotic to me.

I went on to Cincinnati. I had got a taste of the big cities and them bright lights. I stayed there until I was about 18 or 19 and then I went on to Detroit.

For me, growing up in Harlem and then migrating down to SoHo and the Lower East Side and chillin' down there and making that my stomping ground... That was a big thing, because I'm from Harlem, and downtown is more artsy and also more open-minded. So I got the best of both worlds.

Everything I've done in my career has started in and around Detroit, you know, the metro area and Michigan.

I felt that I had been influenced by being in the city enough and I wanted to go off by myself to see what was going on. I remember going out there and looking in the mirror and thinking I wasn't anything.

I spent a lot of time star-gazing, writing, and learning languages when the other kids were doing cooler things in Detroit.