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I see myself as a hip-hop artist, but I never wanted to make music for a specifically white audience. That's not what I grew up around.

To be a white kid into hip-hop meant you'd sought it out and you practiced the art. Which meant dedication and diligence, as well as removing yourself at least occasionally from your own comfort zone and circumstances, and from people who looked like you.

As a white teen, I was very drawn to hip-hop culture, almost to the point of disappearing in it - there was a sense of having no sense of authenticity except this one that wasn't mine.

The only reason I've been so critical of hip-hop is because I've always been aware of the effect that it has, and the reflection that it gives of the African-American community.

More than half of all the hip hop record sales are white people, and I think that might be a result of my record helping people to accept hip hop.

I don't even listen to hip-hop anymore. All my friends are white and over 40.

People of color grow up steeped in 'white' culture. The reverse is not true. And, no, listening to hip-hop on the way to work does not count as immersion.

Hip-hop is very diverse, but if you only focus on one aspect of it, then what you get is this image of Black America that is completely contrary to what actually goes on.

There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip-hop.

Hip-hop has globalized a conception of blackness that has had a political impact, whether or not it had a political intent.