I'm not obsessed with the idea of doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're a rapper. Walking around with cash that you haven't even provisioned for tax. Spending all of your time in the designer store to create some weird impression. I'm not interested, bro. I just like making music, and that's it.

Russ

Advice number one: listen to your gut - it's never gonna lead you wrong. Number two: trust yourself. The root of everything is self-belief.

Russ

I have an unremovable stain of self-confidence.

Russ

Being self-made means doing things your own way - and doing it without any handouts.

Russ

Trends die. That's the natural thing about a trend. It's natural for people to be followers and be sheep and go with a trend.

Russ

I think people sometimes get my message misconstrued and believe I'm trying to brag, but I'm genuinely trying to show people that you can do it all yourself, and there's so much power and freedom in that.

Russ

I think talking things out is therapeutic.

Russ

I love to sit down and have a conversation with like-minded people.

Russ

I don't deviate - once you get validated for being you, I don't know why you would deviate. I stick to my gut and my taste.

Russ

I'm not sitting around, waiting for something to run across the Internet so I can go, 'Oh, that's what I'mma write about.' I just go around, live life, make music, and it's epic.

Russ

If you're an artist, create music and put it out on the Internet. If you do this consistently, your fan base will continue growing, and that will power your entire career.

Russ

I was voted Most Likely to Make a Teacher Retire.

Russ

When you're sitting in the basement trying to get on, you have no choice - you've gotta figure out how to make a song: 'I've gotta bang on these buttons until it sounds good.'

Russ

When I was coming up, I was, and am, producing, mixing, mastering, and writing everything. I would say that all the time. For one, self-sufficiency is a message that should be put out there: you don't have to outsource everything. Two, I'm proud of it.

Russ

I didn't get into music; music got into me.

Russ

I love 2Pac, the cadences of 2Pac.

Russ

I feel like I love a little bit of everything. I grew up listening to the stuff my parents liked, from Earth, Wind & Fire, Luther Vandross, Billy Joel to Bruce Springsteen and The Mommas & The Poppas.

Russ

My raps be crazy, and my hooks are nasty.

Russ

I would have only doubted myself if I was really attached to the result of what I was doing, but I was always doing it and will always do it for the love of making songs, and if you liked it you liked it, if you didn't, you didn't. It was always pure and always will be pure.

Russ

You can have a bunch of individually good players, but it doesn't matter. You gotta learn to play like a team.

Russ

My best friend - who I've known since I was 12 - and I started the DIEMON company together.

Russ