In my heart, I'm 100% real. You can't pull out nothing in my past that can say I'm not 100% real.

Music is all about leadership and there ain't really a lot of leaders.

I just think a hustler's ambition is that I never stop. I start off hustling and said I'll never stop hustling. An ambitious hustler is the one to hustle the hustlers. When I grew up, my heroes were hustlers. Now I'm their hero.

I think I got a lot of life skills; I got a lot of wisdom; I've seen a lot of bad things happen to a lot of good people.

I think you have to plan ahead. When I go to the market on a Saturday, and I'm buying for family and friends, I'm thinking about what I'm going to eat on the weekend but also about what I'm going to make for the following week.

For many, long-term friendships, rather than family ties, are the foundations for sustainable lives.

I was born in New York City on a cold January night when the water pipes in our apartment froze and burst. Fortunately, my mother was in the hospital rather than at home at the time.

This happens to a lot of kids from different backgrounds - they lose a lot of their parents' and grandparents' teachings, language and culture because they have to deal with another language and culture 24/7. By the time I was 44, I was terrible at Spanish. I was always intimidated whenever I had to speak it.