Quote

When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character.

I've had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, 'Your music sucks, you don't know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don't know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'

People in the record business would say, Well, Pras, you know, you haven't been out in a while, maybe you should get today's hottest producer or rapper to do something.

When I came out rapping on my record, a lot of people said, Oh, you just want to be like Puff.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

I think that's a weak excuse, to say because a rapper's getting older that he ain't got it no more. Nah. Don't go by that philosophy. Let's just recognize that talent is within.

The roots of rap are originally ghetto-ised or extremely working class. So when you're an artist who's making something which isn't how its mainstream appearance should be, there's always these strange questions of authenticity and what you have to do to be 'real' as a rapper.

I started rapping because I wanted people to hear what I have to say, I want as many people to hear me as possible, and I do everything in my power to make that pop.

I went from selling everything to saying, 'I ain't gonna sell that. Can't do it.' It wasn't working for me, so I was just like, 'Yo, I'm going to sell my talent.'

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.