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But it all came, and for me, hip-hop has done more for racial divide and racial sort of bringing together than anything in the last 30 years. Seeing people like Eminem sounding like somebody like Jay-Z and just the racial aspects of it all.

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

In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is.

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.

That's why I called my record Devil Without a Cause - I'm a white boy who's so sick of hearing that white kids are going to steal rap.

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.

White people couldn't do black music back in the day because they weren't funky or bad enough. They weren't from the ghettoes, but hip-hop and R&B changed all of that because white kids want to be down with it. They wanted to learn it so they studied the culture. It's kind of a cool thing because we shouldn't be so separate.

Just because a rapper is white, I don't feel the need to attack them.

I have been a fan of the Beastie Boys ever since I can remember. I have a ton of their music on my iPod and even still have a t-shirt from a show I saw when I was a kid.

Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.