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I grew up around hip-hop so I didn't think it was about being cool or being black or being white or whatever.

I'm not hip, I'm not cool, I'm not glib.

In the hip-hop community, it's about how real are you, or how strong can you be, and really my music just reflects me. If you can accept me, then you can accept my music.

To me, rap music is bigger than who's the coolest rapper, the biggest rapper. It's everything about your personality.

Sometimes you have the trends that's not that cool. You may have certain artists portraying these trends and don't really have that lifestyle, and then it gives off the wrong thing. And it becomes kinda corny after awhile. It's really about keeping hip-hop original and pushing away the corniness in it.

Whatever rappers wear is cool to people.

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.

You cannot represent cool. You've got to be cool. You've got to be authentic. I think, after all these years, that is how I define cool. It is being authentic. That is powerful.

Hip-hop is a vehicle.

The thing about hip-hop is that it's from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.