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Rap was started by black people and, thus, is at the foundation of black culture. So people cannot always wrap their minds around someone like me being inspired by it. But if you listen to the things we're saying, they're authentically us.

The problem is that rap is so often a caricature of its own image. Nobody comes to the table with the seriousness of the effect that it can have; nobody is prepared for that.

Rap actually took root in the Negro community, and then in the Hispanic community, long before it impacted on the larger American community as a whole.

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.

I think it's a mistake where rap music is these days. It doesn't seem to be able to look out of the ghetto and that's ultimately unfortunate, because it defines our limitations.

So, rap has that quality, for youth anyway; it's a kind of blues element. It's physical, almost gymnastic. It speaks to you organically. Rap grows out of what young people really are today, not only black youth, but white - everybody.

I understand what rappers are talking about. I think rap is less about educating people about the black community and more about making money.

When you've been raised in care, rap music isn't just about guns and sexism. They're talking about real things you can hang on to, problems of identity that you have sympathy with. It's not just about the music, with rap: when I was in care, it meant a whole lot more than that.

I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.

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.