How do you feel about the state of hip hop these days?
There’s two sides, it’s always been that way. Music belongs to the people that make it and the people who want to hear it. The problem is that there are people who want to make money from it. And they stand in the way of both of these people. Our music is a reflection of our political maturity, no matter what you say. I don’t give a fuck if it’s “Laffy Taffy” or “Diamonds from Sierra Leone,” it’s still a reflection of what we are thinking, who we are and what we’re gonna practice. I’ll take that home to my daughter and raise her correctly – that’s not a problem. The problem is the exploitation in the music. When we aren’t able to dictate what we really wanna hear and what we don’t want to hear. We’re bombarded with it through these propaganda and promotional mechanisms on TV and radio, and we really start to not think for ourselves. And there in you have the problem with the state of hip hop music. Some people would do anything to get into that position, and I think that level of prostitution is criminal. And it’ll keep going till we stop it…literally companies are paying artists to sell products through hip hop music. That’s what it’s become. And here we are, we love ‘em. These are our favorite songs. They have videos, and they get Grammy’s for this. And I think that’s criminal…Pop-Tarts, Playtex – you can’t get nothing without having hip hop attached to it.

People think it’s so cool being in the music industry, and would do anything to get involved in it. What do you tell these kids that want to get “put on” so badly?
Don’t get used! They use you for your energy; suck you dry for your ideas and then 10 years later you’re just figuring it out. You come out the other side, dizzy, trying to find your bearings – and you’ve been had. You’ve been bamboozled. So you have to use the system. The correct words are: Pimp the system…Trying to get into this industry, get next to these people who ain’t worth getting next to. Personalities are less than admirable who do things that you wouldn’t even want to do, or be associated with…Look at Puffy and The Lox. I was listening to Hot 97, and the guys were arguing about their contract. They’ve been away from Puffy for 11 years but he owns their publishing, they can’t even do an album – they’re retiring as The Lox. My point being, this guy Puffy sits back, and he’s created the most oppressive kind of contract in the world, where grown men can’t even do their own work and have a career. He has his foot on the neck of these artists, who a lot of people admire, but have no idea how exploitive this man is being over them…even his man Biggie Smalls, he owns his publishing too. What kind of person is this – and why do we love him? Do I want a friend who would do me like that? No. I don’t want anyone like that around me. But we revere Puffy for his business and his tenacity. That’s bullshit. It’s bullshit where he’s going, and what he’s done, and I don’t applaud it. True that those guys did sign a contract, and knew what they were signing. But those laws, of nature and the world, are not equal. Just ‘cause that contract said it’s fair, don’t mean it is. This is not fair - I don’t care if their names are on this line…he’s the bottom of the barrel, yet people love him and everybody wants to be that. I think that should be a lesson of what not to be. It’s crazy, and I don’t want my daughter to come up in that… Raising a daughter has brought a whole new perspective on life. It made me do things that I wouldn’t do. It made me do this record. I really had to just sit back and review what my life has been, and where I want it to be. I don’t want to be in this country in five to eight years.