Musician

I have a bigger voice than Donald Trump, you know what I'm saying? Than literally anybody that works in politics.

I have a bigger voice than Donald Trump, you know what I'm saying? Than literally anybody that works in politics.

I think the only thing that's really going to make a change in terms of how we feel as citizens in terms of safety and our relationship with the police is if we start seeing more federal indictments, arrests, and convictions of police officers.

The idea of 'talking white,' a lot of people grew up around that, just the idea that if you speak with proper diction and come off as educated that it's not black and that it's actually anti-black and should be considered only something that white people would do.

I used to be the class clown. I was the funny kid. That's why it was so hard for people to understand that I rap, because for a long time, they didn't take me seriously for who I was. By, like, eighth grade, I was really rapping.

One of the first times I ever performed in front of a big group of people was at my kindergarten graduation. I did, like, a Michael Jackson impersonation as, like, a five year old. I had the suit and blazer, the glove and the fedora, and I just performed a whole Michael Jackson song. I'm sure it was 'Smooth Criminal.'

I would say almost 60 percent of working with Kanye - let's say 53 percent of working with Kanye - is speeches.

It wasn't until I left that I realised it's not weird to grow up in certain cities and, by the age of 27 or 28, for all of your friends to still be alive. I can think of a lot of kids that I knew in Chicago who were supposed to grow up but didn't.

Fame or perceived success - it all comes from groupthink.

I am scared of death.

There's a larger conversation we need to have about the role of police officers, their relationship to the people as enemy or executioner, when they're not supposed to be either.

I don't have to carry myself as anybody that I'm not, and people picked up on it.

I was a mad, impressionable kid, and every skit from 'The College Dropout' was telling me how I didn't need school.

I think that's always the goal of art, is to make people ask themselves questions.

Everything you write as an artist is about your legacy and your catalog and how you would look in a museum.

I always wanted to be more of a person that people enjoy. Somebody that will make you laugh. I'm talking about just my personality, not necessarily how my music sounds.

I think when you're in my position as an artist, I can say what I want and talk about the issues that matter.

'Hamilton' is revolutionary in terms of writing.

I think, as a black man, I have a responsibility to have knowledge and have an opinion.

I'm a big R&B guy. I'm a huge R. Kelly fan.