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As far as Hip Hop Manhattan was after the Bronx.

That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that.

I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America.

Although I grew up as a fan of the culture from the disco D.J. era as a young kid and hearing the beginnings of hip-hop, I'm hearing it all from another borough in Brooklyn.

I grew up in New York City in the '80s, and it was the epicenter of hip-hop. There was no Internet. Cable television wasn't as broad. I would listen to the radio, hear cars pass by playing a song, or tape songs off of the radio. At that time, there was such an excitement around hip-hop music.

Hip-hop is like underground. I don't know if hip-hop exists anymore. I don't know if it does.

Hip-hop started as this niche moment, and the values of it, the cultures that it carried on its back; language, clothes, the way you wear your clothes, the items that you consume, all came with the music as an art form. And those things helped transform how people buy, shop, speak, engage.

Hip-hop is bigger than the South; hip-hop is bigger than New York.

I grew up in Chicago, so hip-hop has always been a part of my life.

As hard as it is, as ghetto as it is, hip-hop is pop music. It's the sound of music getting out of the ghetto, while rock is looking for a ghetto.