Go to the club or go to the block or go hang out and things start coming.
It is what it is but I do me and I think people respect that. They see me out in the hood by myself or with wifey and I don't have no bodyguards.
Keep your guns on and don't let anybody tell you how to load your guns or bust ya guns.
Hopefully we get back to the raw essence of hip hop again.
I only made x amount of albums in 20 years and to still be living comfortably. A lot of people and friends look at me and be like yo Ra how do you do it? You don't go on tour every year and you don't make an album every year, you chill with your family and watch TV. Everyone else is out on tour getting that money. But I managed to do my thing right with the help of my accountant and I'm still comfortable.
I think things are gonna change. I'm gonna take the age limit off of hip hop.
The money from every unit being sold is what I feel every artist should see.
My whole thing is if it wasn't for people like ya'll and people like them I wouldn't be me. I love every minute of it.
I see my pops everyday and that's what I wanted.
I started studying in '85 and got knowledge of self and started spitting. What was going on was taking the understanding of what I was reading and applying it with my life and applying it with my rhymes.
Sometimes I see where I want to take the song and wind up at the end and come back to the beginning. I don't miss nothing and everything is good. Everything I thought of is incorporated in it.
Once I get the track I know what to do with it.
I go up in the supermarkets and people always go what are you doing here and I go I'm hungry in a sarcastic but nice way just to let them know yo I'm human too man.
That's another thing yo rappers are scared to bring new styles out. There's so many different ways we can be flowing but everybody chooses to flow the generic way.
I don't accept that the new generation is looking for anything different than what we've always been looking for. Depending on the moment, they want bangers that make them crack their neck, they want tracks that put them in a zone where they can sit back and chill.
Do what you do don't let the label tell you to do something else.
I don't want to put nobody on blast but in the beginning it's like somebody telling you somebody looks like you and you've been looking in the mirror your whole life and nobody looks like you. Same thing with me.
Every time someone come out with an album don't change the whole style up but don't do what they are expecting. Surprise them.
When I hear my first album today I hear myself reading my rhymes but I'm my worst critic.
Sometimes I feel I'm the luckiest rapper in the world.
I never really liked the idea of doing mixtapes but at the same time it was a big thing a lot of people were doing it and it almost got to the point where if you didn't touch the mixtape circuit it was like you didn't care.
You gotta let the fans shine their glory the way they want. It's like I have a million bosses and my job is to make them happy.
Once I finish one album I know where to begin again.
My son plays football so I coach a couple of his teams. My youngest son just started playing last year and I assistant coached for one of his teams. I try to be there as much as I can. I also want to kill the stereotype. I want them to respect me as a man and a father first and then if you like hip hop go buy my album.
Even when I was out on tour I used to fly home on the weekends to be with my girl and be with my family to see my kids grow up and just be there for them. When they started going to school it was like that too whether it was homework or if I have to go up to the school I was there.
