The next day, I got a phone call from him and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. So I went over there and they told me I was gonna wear dreads and play a cop.

You have to come in on a professional level to make it, otherwise you just can’t get into rap.

Ultimately I am happy that everybody is embracing hip hop and the sounds from the streets.

I have to grow with my audience.

Everything we do helps the new artists in the long run.

I’m on the front line and I am a rapper.

Well, I am very happy that I was able to play a part in bringing music from the streets onto the radio and into modern culture, I worked very hard and always believed in the sounds I was creating.

I’ve never read for a movie, I’ve always been given them.

The next day, I got a phone call from him and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. So I went over there and they told me I was gonna wear dreads and play a cop.

You can’t come out on a record dissing the system and be on a label that’s connected to the system.

The best way to listen to the album is to put it on, get some Moet, lay back with your boys, and kick it.

If you’re really a rapper, you can’t stop rapping.

I’m at a point where I don’t have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I’m in a comfortable zone, but I’ll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.

As long as I’m around the cats in the hip hop scene, they’ll throw me a track and I’ll write a rap over it.

We have groups that do that, but I can’t rap with the mentality of an 18 year old when I’m in my 30’s.

As an actor, you can do what you want with your role. That’s why they hire you; to take the role and make it real.

Oh man, nobody is as tough as Mr T. Ice T is pretty tough though as well.

I ain’t got no beef with east coast, I think it’s just being hyped up.

I want to be able to say that a rap career could be ten albums.

When I first got into the rap game, I had an early dream of unifying rappers.

I don’t have to put out another rap record. I can do it at my casual pace.

I’ve never been competitive with anybody but myself.

So you don’t have to take us too seriously; I mean, we’re already intimidating enough on stage.

So from an actor’s perspective, you really have no idea how you’re acting.

Any New York group can come to L.A. and sell out every show, but an L.A. group who goes to New York might not do the same because the audience hasn’t been introduced to the group.

I’m a big fan of all styles, even Biggie and Wu-Tang, but I gotta do my thing.

AIDS is such a scary thing and it’s also the kind of thing that you think won’t happen to you. It can happen to you and it’s deadly serious.

I mean rappin’ to me is easy, it’s something you can do over a week.

Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls.

I’ll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show.

I’m competitive in that I would like to outsell my last record.

If it sells, it sells. If it doesn’t sell, I’ll go make a movie.