I do secret stand-up shows around New York. I announce and tweet this to nobody – I get onstage and I do a quick five minutes.

I don’t think crack happened by accident. I’m part conspiracy theorist, because you can’t develop something that dangerous and have it not be planned.

I hate videos. I’m meticulous on everything from cover art, fonts, productions, mixing. But when it comes to videos, I just feel so defeated.

Just because the laws were changed doesn’t mean that the attitudes have changed.

Reagan’s neglect of the inner city is responsible for hiphop. Hiphop is created thanks to the conditions that crack set: easy money but a lot of work, the violence involved, the stories it produced. Crack helped birth hiphop.

I’m a 24-hour tweet machine, I’m a 24-hour blogger. When there’s no pressure on me, I can talk and write and lecture with the best of them. But put a deadline on me and I start getting writer’s block.

For anyone that’s ever had a musical breakthrough in their career, it’s always followed by the departure period right after.

I think all of this – The Roots and DJing included – was meant to prepare me for The Tonight Show.

Highlight reels are about that one person. After a barrage of highlight reels, you get the sense that you can do it without a team. But music thrived the most when groups were involved. People lose sight of that – that community makes the world run.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the average person can do about four things a day, like four real things a day.