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What hit me in the gut about hip-hop was that someone else grew up tough enough to be angry at the entire system.

Hip-hop is all about impact, baby. You can sell records, you can be two-times platinum, you can be gold... but if you lame, you lame, man. We try to provide the exact opposite of that. It's style, individuality, confidence. We exude that.

You can't compete with hip-hop. That doesn't mean I don't want to be as big as a rap star. I do - I'm always competitive. But there's this weird perception of me as someone who's sitting around plotting like a devil. It's not like that.

Hip hop has the urgency and rebelliousness that early rock n' roll and punk had: a level of rule-breaking and flirtation with danger. It allows you to break the rules.

That's the reason why I'm making albums. That's the reason why I love hip-hop: It's a challenge every time.

The materialism, the brashness, the misogyny - everything in hip-hop is amplified. Misogyny is a good example of something that is completely amplified in hip-hop. I do think there is more than enough of a balance, though, for fans who are willing to search it out.

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.

Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.

Because hip-hop has no requirements, you deal with people that have the least intelligence on the planet. Some of the people that compare themselves to me, compare themselves to me because they rap and I rap. They can't even read the contracts that they sign to be a rapper, to do the deal.