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I loved hip-hop. The first stuff I heard was Public Enemy, and I couldn't believe it. It was amazing, and I've always loved hip-hop.

At the end of the day I want to be the guy who experienced music in all type of ways, with hip-hop being the roots of it.

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 aim my music at the hip black hip-hop audience.

At a certain point, I got into the older, cooler crowd, and they listened to hip-hop. I was desperately trying to fit in.

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.

Hip hop has been an integral part of my life and my whole career. I started off doing videos with Ice Cube and Dre and Mary J. Blige and TLC.

Hip hop was definitely, far and away, the primary influence for at least 10 years of my life. From about 7 or 8 on till about 15 or 16, that's all I listened to.

When I was growing up, hip-hop was still a pretty specialised thing.

I am hip-hop!