I have the weirdest career in hip-hop, and I say that because I started so young. I started So So Def when I was 17 years old.

Welcome to Atlanta' was a song I wanted to do on my first album. The idea was for me and Outkast to do it, but I could never come up with a beat for us to do it. Outkast beats and my beats were very different.

I make music not to make money but because it's in me.

I stopped writing lyrics down on paper after me and Jay-Z did 'Money In the Bank.' They're something I just hold in my mind.

New online formats gutted the newspaper-ad business. Why pore over tiny print looking for a job in the want ads when you can tap a few keywords into monster.com, then click through and apply? Why pay a steep per-character rate for a classified when you can hawk a whole garage full of used stuff on EBay or Craigslist for free?

I've been here 21 years, and I literally did walk up and down Music Row trying to break into the business. I felt very free to go into any publishing company.

I know I can fight. I know I have kicks that can destroy people. Just because I haven't gotten in the ring in my career, that doesn't mean I'm not capable of crushing people.

I have been blessed to win a number of awards and be involved in numerous historical baseball moments over my 20-year career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.