Thinking about the artists I've loved through the years, my favorites are the ones who've made music with cultural, societal and political significance.
I came from a two-parent household and my father is a PhD from west Africa, but at the same time I grew up five blocks from where Obama lived and five blocks from the projects.
People think I'm angry and they're right. There's a lot to be angry about. But I'm also empathetic and ambitious and hopeful and happy at times.
Chicago, I feel, is a microcosm for the segregated, violent environment that is America. I try to not only speak about these things in music, but also try to address these things in real life tangibly with action.
I collaborated with so many people from Chicago - so many Black people, young Black women organizations like BYP100 and Assata's Daughters. Just being out there, I saw what a community mobilizing can accomplish in terms of freedom and how music and my words in my music can play a significant part in that.
I think first of all my purpose is to be me. I didn't come here to specifically be a role model or anything.
I feel that my purpose is to shed light on some of the darker sides of our world, and to lend a hand and a voice to people struggling.
I've been combing through the Wolverine archives and advertisements from the sixties and seventies. I'm looking to take inspiration from designs of the past and bring them into the future.
I just stand by the things I believe in and if that upsets people, which it often does, then we got a situation on our hands. Everybody is okay and safe. I'm just blessed to be awake.
So much of my life and my style and sensibility are influenced by skateboarding. It's counter-culture and skateboarding is my introduction to counter-culture.
I used to print out lyrics from Nas songs and write my own lyrics in the same syllable count but with different words and different rhymes.
I might have 'couch syndrome.' I'm always sleeping on the couch at home, even when I have a comfortable bed. I'm used to it.
On family trips and vacations, I remember walking around with my little sister and making funny songs on the spot.
As an artist, I try not to sound the same as others. Or even as myself.
There's a lot of times when I feel nihilistic, and lose hope, like I'm just lost in the world. But there's a lot of times when I can kinda be in control of destiny.
I've been harassed by police my whole life and seen people who looked like me treated like animals at the hands of law enforcement.
I really make music from the heart.
I'm from a family of educators. I grew up with books in my house and in my hands and my parents in my life.
I have the kind of conscience that it doesn't feel right if I watch other people suffer and I do nothing about it.
Anybody who's dealt with addiction and depression knows that sometimes they can make you forget who you are and kind of bring out a different person, somebody you don't know as well.
