I look at some of my fans at my show, and a lot of them look like they're straight out of a punk rock show. They like what I'm coming across with. I had seen them same thing when I went to this Scarface show, so it lets me know that I'm on the right track.

Coming up in America in the '80s and '90s, we were not too far removed from slavery. People forget that.

Gary is a old factory town right outside Chicago. From my standpoint, my family migrated there in the '50s and '60s from Mississippi - Sardis, Mississippi - shout out to Sardis, Mississippi. My family migrated there just like a lot of black families in that area: they migrated there to get jobs, to get those factory jobs, that steel mill job.

I study my competition for at least an hour a day. I get on the Internet, I look at what they doing, and then I look at ways to defeat them. I know their mixtapes track-by-track. I know some of their lyrics.

I want my son - and my kids, if I have more - to grow up in a way that is as anonymous as possible. The fact that his father and I have chosen to do the work that we do doesn't give anybody the right to invade our privacy.

Buying involves decision-making. It's a performance activity, like sports or acting.

My father and mother are Muslims. But from the moment I started talking, I decided I was a Christian. They let me.

I had to get in touch with the source, I had to go back into my abandonment issues with my mother, I had to go into issues with my father I hadn't even looked at before.