Be honest, brutally honest. That is what's going to maintain relationships.
I don't feel like my money or my success defines me. I've always been very happy just bein' me.
I keep letting you back in. How can I explain myself? As painful as this thing has been, I just can't be with no one else.
Everything is everything
What is meant to be, will be
After winter, must come spring
Change, it comes eventually.
From the first time someone says, Who do you think you are? we learn how to repress.
I tried to manipulate and control people, and I harbored resentment. I wanted to be forgiven, but I wouldn't forgive others.
We don't want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else.
I got into direct confrontation with everybody I love.
I never did anything I'm really ashamed of.
I believe God will make a way.
I wouldn't even hold my kids sometimes because I didn't want them to spit up on me when I was dressed for an awards show.
I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first.
I don't need anybody to market or promote me. If people don't want to hear this music, then it's not for them. You cannot please everybody.
When you're young and everything dramatic is exciting, you start to believe that hype that, in order to be an artist, you have to suffer. I've graduated from that school.
I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.
We call ourselves creators and we just copy.
Everything we do should be a result of our gratitude for what God has done for us.
Let optimists rule the world.
We have to make sure the music and the message and the words and all the elements come through in our songs and every time we appear in public.
This life is a process of learning.
The less I have, the freer I am to do whatever I want to do.
To those supporters who were told that I abandoned them, that is untrue. I abandoned greed, corruption, and compromise, never you, and never the artistic gifts and abilities that sustained me.
You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.
What was freely given to me, I freely give.
That strong mother doesn't tell her cub, Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you. She says, Toughen up, this is reality we are living in.
Reality is easy. It's deception that's the hard work.
Nobody's going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should submit my will to them?
I don't know anybody that's not emotionally unstable or schizophrenic.
Hip-Hop isn't just music, it is also a spiritual movement of the blacks! You can't just call Hip-Hop a trend!
I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am.
We can't plan life. All we can do is be available for it.