I always knew that I had to direct. That was something I'd wanted to do. Finally, I was just looking at the situation and I said, "I wanna document hip-hop, as an art form, seeing how a lot of people don't take it seriously."
Anybody who has anybody in the armed forces, I don't care how well-trained they are, there's nothing safe about it.
A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.
I was a pretty bad person early in my life.
My father died early. My mother died early. I started hanging with the gangs. I'm on the streets; I'm committing crimes. And the music came along, and this music just took me on a different road.
If you really listen to my music my music is more like stories than party records. I never made party records.
The trick with hip-hop-hip-hop is a sport. The only music that's really, really close to a sport. It starts off, "My DJ's better than yours. I can out-rap you, I can out-dance you, my graffiti piece is better than you." It's very competitive.
The next day, I got a phone call from him and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. So I went over there and they told me I was gonna wear dreads and play a cop.
I'm a big Brad Pitt fan. He's really talented. I think a lot of men are intimidated by him, saying he's just a pretty boy or whatever, but he is a bad man. I think he can act.
Everyone who raps isn't hip-hop. To be hip-hop, you've got to know the culture. You got to know the history.
I've been in crime for a long time and I know that the actual move isn't the actual crime: the crime continues [afterwards].
I mean rappin' to me is easy, it's something you can do over a week.
There's a lot of films I've done I don't ever wanna see again.
A lot of times people would offer me movies and, because I'm a car freak, I'd look in a magazine and say, 'How much is this car? If you give me this car I'll show up and do the movie' I call 'em 'sports car flicks'.
I've got a phone, answer machine, TV set, computer, hand grenade - everything you need to run a business in Los Angeles.
