Nas

“I'm just little me, an American who wants to see his country do better.”

“My record company had to beg me to stop filmin' music videos in the projects. No matter what the song was about, I had 'em out there.”

“Every time I get in the studio, I feel like I wanna have some fun. My fun is not doing the easy work. My fun is doing what's me.”

“I just enjoy life now. I just enjoy every morning I get to wake up.”

“Once you make it to your point of making it, you'll appreciate the struggle.”

“No one's promised anything. You could have the biggest record on radio and sell no records.”

“Calling Michelle 'Obama Barack's baby mama?' Tell me, is that acceptable? But the Obamas aren't the only targets. Fox's pattern of race-baiting and fear-mongering regularly focuses on black leaders, black institutions and ordinary black people.”

“Working with great people makes you great; you learn a lot and it also gives you the experience and confidence to move on with your own career.”

“I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that's been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.”

“You can't please everybody. You'd be crazy if you're trying to. So take some time out to do some things for yourself.”

“When I say 'hip-hop is dead,' basically, America is dead. There is no political voice. Music is dead.”

“I wish the music business was a much easier thing, but you know what? Nothing easy is worth anything. So it is what it is. There comes a time when things can work out and everybody can be happy. And that's what it's all about in the end - everybody being happy and working it out.”

“I think the hip-hop purists are purists through and through. They're here to criticize all of us. That's just how it is. We as MC's criticize each other. That's the nature of hip-hop.”

“I never stood for any president in my life, never voted, before Barack Obama. It changed my life to vote. It starts there with me. I never cared for politics before Barack Obama. I never thought it mattered to people like me.”

“I've been called everything. Gangsta rap. I've been called conscious rap. You know, everything. Whoever feels like calling it whatever they want to call it, that's on them.”

“I don't get jealousy, I don't get how people hate each other - I never did.”

“Let's not forget, art can sell. You ain't gotta front all the time on your records.”

“I think marriage is a beautiful thing. I'm still a supporter of it.”

“I'll always love rap, no matter what's going on.”

“I can't control what people think. They know who I am.”