We really have the power to illuminate all negative things in our life, but we have to find that light source inside of us and really tap in with it and reconnect with it.
If you can't love yourself, you can't love other people.
I grew up really kind of mixed up. I lived with my white grandparents and mom and got made fun of a lot because I talked like her.
When I heard my first rap song and figured out what that was, I kind've stuck to it. I always wanted to be a musician in general, an entertainer. I just started rapping. I never decided, 'Oh, I want to be a rapper.'
At some point, I had to ignore what people thought of me. I had to be my own biggest fan from an early age. Once I learned that, it was like a superpower. That was the armor that got me through high school.
When you're the cool guy, you don't know how to take people not liking you. I've already been there, done that.
There's nobody taller and cooler than Will Smith. He's the coolest tall person, so I'm trying to be like that.
People called me sharktooth, Dracula. I got made fun of so much cause I couldn't afford braces.
'Beautiful Loser' had a lot of great records. It had a lot of really heartfelt songs on there. But I felt, at the time, it didn't have it's own cohesive sound.
When you roast yourself, it makes everybody else comfortable.
I look at old performers like James Brown: back in the day when you actually had to work hard to get poppin'. I look at all those types of performers. Even like Kid n' Play and the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff and Salt-N-Pepa. That era where they had to perform. You couldn't just rap. It had to be an entire performance.
Everybody on my street was broke, running around with no shoes on. We didn't have money, but we played tag, we talked. It was great.
Around when I turned 17 and I bought my own studio equipment and started recording myself, I kinda found my own voice. I just started rapping like my normal self and this happy guy.
It's not about being happy 100 percent all the time, cause that's just life. I make sad songs, too, that really only make the happy songs better.
Growing up in California has completely made me the person that I am.
That was everything to me as a kid. When I'd see someone on MTV, it was like, 'Wow, they're the real deal.'
I need to get as deep as I can into my own heart to really make people connect and react to the music as passionate as possible.
I don't feel pressure to act like other people or rap like other people, because I just can't.
Mike Tyson and Kool G Rap had lisps - lisps always been cool!
My relationship with my father is fine. Every relationship has its ups and downs because bad things happen in all relationships. But for me, I can only write about what I'm feeling in the moment and something that actually happened to me.
