"I have to feel like my grandmother was my first mix engineer."
"I'm thankful for all the support I've received over the years."
"My music's gonna evolve as I get older."
"With some of the samples that I chose to use, tracking down the person that owns the publishing has become a task."
"People don't necessarily expect singles from me. They expect full bodies of work."
"I think if I wanted to get to a point where I could actually grow in my music, I had to almost step away from sampling so much and start making the kind of music that people wanted to sample."
"Adele was introduced to me by a guitarist named Mike Hartnett that plays for a band called Rehab. We was just riding around, and he was like, 'Man have you heard this soul singer Adele?' and I was like 'Nah!' and we just rode to the whole CD, and it got to 'Hometown Glory,' and I was like, 'Man I have to sample that!'"
"I think doing a record with B.B. King allowed me the opportunity to blend two different generations across the board and make a song that I hope is extremely impactful."
"It's a lot of people that died for me to have the opportunity that I have now, just the freedom. It shouldn't be forgotten as far as the past is concerned."
"People will reach out because they know I'm trying to put my best forward when it comes to subject matter and creation of song."
"I always revisit duality because I think it's a conflict we all have. I think we all leave our house and go to work, and we put on the cape and become superheroes. That's what we do. It's how we move through life and handle negativity: you do everything you can to stay away from it."
"In my house, I don't just always listen to rap."
"It seems like music gets put in this hub where you have to rap about this, and the minute you do something else, it's like you changing. Nah, I'm being creative."
"I'm in competition with myself, and I'm always going to challenge myself."
"Sometimes you think you didn't win, and you focus so much on that instead of really looking at it from the perspective of it not being your time yet."
"People know, lyrically, I go in, and you should never take me lightly on any record."
"I love tearing people's speakers up."
"Everyone needs a lay-up at some point in life - just somebody to look out, something good to happen in your life to kind of push you forward."
"With music, it's a therapy for me. So whatever I'm dealing with at the time, I talk about it when I rap."
"If I could have stayed independent from the jump, then, maybe, things would have been different. 'Return of 4Eva' would have been an album instead of a mixtape."
"I think us, especially as black people, we don't necessarily talk about our feelings enough or talk to someone about our feelings."
"I never lost my faith."
"The things that I leave creatively are going to stay here long past me. That's the reason why the album is called '4Eva Is a Mighty Long Time.'"
"I would say when you're dealing with live musicians and musicality, the warmth of a live instrument brings a certain feel to a song that is really hard, sometimes, to get from synthesized instruments."
"A record like 'Price of Fame' - when you do get this success, how do you treat it, or how do you let it treat you? How does it affect your family and friends and the people around you? ... And I don't mind telling people what I've been through when it comes to the pressure I put on myself of wanting to be the best and the greatest."
