This is the trouble with cheating: there are no acceptable rules, or laws. It could be a smile, or dancing to a song that you considered to be indefinably 'ours'. It can feel like cheating to go to a restaurant that you used to go to with someone else. Keeping photographs of exes can infuriate, like retrospective cheating.

A. A. Gill

I had to realize that you can't try to get money, support yourself, and grind doing whatchu need to do at the same time. The music is the grind. You really gotta grind. You gotta find your way around. You can't be stuck tryna get there.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

When I was 13, before I got in high school, I was writing mad raps. I didn't really know if it was good or not, so for a year, I just held them. When I got in high school, I started spittin' bars.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

Even though I can't dance, that's, like, the one thing I wished I could do growing up. I used act like I was MJ, doing the moonwalk, tip toes, leg kick, all that.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

I pick and choose what I want to put on what. Instead of just dropping a single, I like putting projects together.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

Growing up in Highbridge was real. Me and all my friends, we never really went to any other places in the Bronx but Highbridge. We always just stayed in Highbridge. It was like territory, to be honest, because Highbridge is like a town.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

Some of my songs are turnt up, but that's just 'cause I have to make 'em like that so the clubs can play them.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

This is the most fun thing in the world to me, making music. Sitting down, I can make songs and not leave the booth, ever, and I love it.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

You can't say I don't sound like a N.Y. rapper - it's because I don't wanna sound like nobody else.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

2017 was crazy when I made the 'Freshman' cover 'cause I looked up to it, and I really wanted to be in it. It was motivation for me after that: I kept on going, and I grinded.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

Everybody was always telling me to rap and freestyle. I used to go to the park and spit on the mic. If I go to the park, they always gonna give me the mic.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

You always gonna feel me. That's my main thing. When I'm speaking in my music, you gotta feel me.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

People's hustle in the Bronx is real.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

One day, walking through the Bronx streets, I just realized that people were stopping me, taking pictures, and noticing me from across the street. I can't even use public transportation anymore, so I kind of stopped going places and started going straight to the studio, going home, and telling people I can't go anywhere anymore.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

I was trying to make my name just Artist in the beginning, but it was weird at first, because I wasn't an R&B singer or nothing. Not an R&B singer. I didn't do no melodic songs, none of that yet.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

'Remember the Time' and 'You Rock My World' from Michael Jackson were two of my favorite songs ever. My mom used to bump them all the time.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

I was inspired to shoot 'Look Back at It' in a high school because I'm like a voice of the youth. When the youth sees me in a classroom, I want them to be inspired to accomplish their dreams. I was just like them in a classroom at one point. It all starts in a classroom.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

I got so many people that have my number. It's crazy. I just don't feel like texting anybody back after I get, like, 30 text messages in three hours. I just be chilling.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

I'm not the type of person who makes a lot of songs in a day just to see which one is the best.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

Most of the time, I'm making music. There'll be moments of my life where I feel like I gotta to take a break and come back to the music. It's hard to explain, but you need to get a break from it and then come back to it. It's like you gotta lose something to appreciate it.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

I used to record songs, like, play the beat from one phone and have another phone recording me and just rap. Moving from that to a studio was like, 'Damn, I never knew I could sound like this.' It was just magic.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien