Kendrick Lamar is 10-times the rapper I am, but I just feel I'm the best at getting my own point across.
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I'm not some patriot. I didn't have some yearning to defend my country or anything. I was poor.
Either people cling to the past and refuse to advance their ways, or they're always looking to future and not appreciating what's in front of them right now.
I don't think any other place puts out music with no promise of success and still works like Baltimore.
The intention behind 'Prone!' was to make a punk song with no instruments.
I don't rely on the strength of my image.
On 'Black Ben Carson,' I had strict no melody thing. I wanted straight, raw, rugged noise music.
The first thing I ever put on the Internet was actually a beat tape, but the first thing I ever put on where I was rapping was called 'Generation Y,' and it was hella political.
The first time I ever went to Texas was on a bus with curtains draped over the windows. I just joined the military and got shipped off to basic training in San Antonio.
In my opinion, the most dangerous thing an artist can do in this day and age is not embrace the present.
I saw Fear perform live at a young age, so I guess you could say I draw from that same energy.
My dad used to play old dancehall records - Cutty Ranks, Ranking Dread, Michael Prophet, these type of dudes.
If Kanye was not in the equation, I literally wouldn't even be here. His music pushed hip-hop - the man is a master at taking a complex idea and presenting it in a way that is accessible for everyone.
When I released 'Veteran' and the reception was good, it was the first time I ever worked really hard on something and had that hard work reciprocated back to me.
America to me is where I grew up: in Brooklyn, around other black and Latino people who helped and loved each other. I just want to show people that America doesn't have to be this 'I'm in the NRA, blah blah blah' type of place.
I've been watching anime for a minute, so I know like real weird deep anime that people probably don't care about.
So much of rap sounds the same, and that's okay, but that means some people want something that can be the complete opposite too.
Bjork for sure. Definitely, I would like to do like something with Tommy Genesis, too. There's a lot of people actually.
If I wasn't making music I'd still be listening to it and talking about it. That's why I'm able to chill with Denzel Curry and then Jeff Tweedy, because the thing that's linking us is music.
Everyone has a little niche in rap, and I just wanted to carve a piece out of it for myself.
Well, me and Freaky been knowing each other for a while, and he was always playing crazy music in his room, but he would never release it. He's, like, the most underground rapper I know, and he's crazy talented.
There's no right or wrong way to do things and I think a lot of the SoundCloud rappers with their DIY music are proving that to be true.
I'm aware that if I make a country album and release it, and it gets on the Grammys, the Grammys are going to put it in the Urban category. Just my blackness automatically sets it in there.
I love Baltimore, I miss the people, but I think L.A. is way more chill.
For me, sampling is a high art. Most people don't see it that way, but it's a beautiful thing. I wouldn't know anything about music if it wasn't for samples.
After the military, I floundered around between jobs for a while, and there was an opportunity for me to go live in Japan. I was living on the Okinawa Airport Base, off the grid, no real address.
I'm going to shock you with the truth. I'm just going to give it to you raw, and however you take it, I'm just going to watch your reaction.
As a black person, I have two parties to choose from: liberal and conservative. If I choose to be a liberal - regardless of who I choose - I'm picking the lesser of two evils in my mind basically.
My first live performance was when I was in the military. I went to some bar, and they had open mics. You could just sign up and perform. Nobody cared. Nobody liked it.
I love soundtracks. I used to have three iPod classics: one with regular music, one with soundtracks, and one with demos on it.
People in rock had this idea that rappers aren't talented. In my opinion we're better writers, we think deeper, and our concepts are harder - Rap evolves faster than any other genre.
Everything I say is true and from the heart. I exaggerate some things, but the core base of it is just facts.
I'm always just gonna do whatever I want. I don't feel any pressure to appeal to anyone in particular.
I have no history with 4chan.
I don't want anyone to expect anything from me. I just want them to know that I'm gonna put 1,037% into whatever I do. If I tell you I'm gonna release a folk/reggae/country album, just know at bare minimum there's gonna be 1,010% put into it.
I don't have a manager who's secretly on Interscope. I'm the complete opposite of an industry plant.
I want to work with Danny Brown but also Cannibal Corpse and Maroon 5.
Black people are not a monolith. Black people have different thoughts. And sometimes people just need to hear the harsh truth - even myself. But you can't manufacture a hard truth and place it on somebody. When Kanye says slavery was a choice, that's not a harsh truth.
The idea of me being an icon or something is a very funny thing, just because of my own weird insecurities. But, yeah... probably because I toiled away being nothing for so long.
The U.S. army is pretty terrible. Never join it!
Liberals allow right-wingers on their platforms to have a 'civilized discussion,' but there's no reasoning with racists. I don't want them to have a platform that humanizes them. I want to talk down to them and meet them exactly where they are, with absolutely no respect.
There's just more emotion and raw feeling in Baltimore music. It can't be copied.
I started producing when I was listening to The Diplomats. The first time I heard Cam'ron was 'Dead or Alive.'
Most of my experience with racism comes from living in the South.
When I first started rapping, I used to just jock Jay Z super hard. Back when I was like 14 and 15, it was, like, Jay Z, Ice Cube, and Lil Wayne.
Baltimore has the hardest work ethic out of all cities. It makes you want to work harder.
We need true free thinkers, people who really say what they feel and have good, genuine intentions.
I don't know if there's anything Kanye West can do that can erase his influence on me, because it's here. It's already there. He can't even reverse that himself, because it's just so ingrained in me.
I just wanted to write about music if I wasn't going to make it.
I am used to making people upset and uncomfortable with my lyrical content when it comes to music.
