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For most of my life, I've thought of myself as pretty cool.

It's actually cool to be positive and optimistic and idealistic. It's cool to see yourself doing beautiful, great things.

Maybe you are the 'cool' generation If coolness means a capacity to stay calm and use your head in the service of ends passionately believed in, then it has my admiration.

People don't know exactly what I do; they just know I'm 'cool.'

I have a pretty clear picture of the whole weight of my life, and there are things that I've done that are good, and I'm proud of them. There are things that I'm really not proud of, and that they, you have to look at me with a perspective, and I try really hard to do that, to keep from thinking I'm cool and ever so smart.

I don't reinvent myself in any major way. It seems to be a slow evolution. I go back and visit certain themes that I feel strongly about and resonate with me emotionally.

I've never been cool and I don't really care about being cool. It's just an awful lot of time and hair gel wasted.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?

Cool? Am I cool? I don't know, but I hope my characters are cool, in the sense of iconic. That's my job, at its very essence.