You've just gotta go in and write from the heart and write the best material that you can and put it out. If one hits, hey, great. It keeps the legacy going. But you've gotta keep doing new material. It's the future of any band.

I'm a businessman who puts up his own money, so I don't have time to hear about emotion. I gotta get right to the point. I'm going to tell you the truth, I'm going to address the elephant in the room, and we'll all move forward.

It was rough being dark. I got heat from my own people more than anyone else. I remember going to my mom and saying, 'Why am I so black?' And she said, 'Because I'm black. You just gotta always work harder than the average bear.'

If Romney would go ideological in explaining Obama, it would help. We gotta stop the, 'He's a nice guy' stuff. Nice guys don't do what Obama is doing. Nice guys don't say and do and act the way Obama is saying, doing, and acting.

Rap is hardcore street music but there are women out there who can hang with the best male rappers. What holds us back is that girls tend to rap in these high, squeaky voices. It's irritating. You've gotta rap from the diaphragm.

When you're a kid, you live carefree. You notice things that go on around you, but you live like a kid with no worries until you get to that certain age where trials and tribulations come and you gotta fight and stay on your toes.

I was fine being in the closet at the beginning of my career because that's what you were supposed to be - until I realized that it didn't serve anybody, and I was left feeling utterly empty. This is who I am, so I've gotta be me.

I always say I should do more yoga. Or do yoga - more would mean I do some. I've done none. But I always want to do yoga because I'm getting old. Nerves are getting pinched every other day, and I really just gotta get more limber.

If I die and I gotta couple Grammys on me, more than a couple hits on me, I got some plaques and I got billboards still up and I done touched a lot of people's souls and I'm viral, once that happen then you can judge all you want.

It's not just passing, I gotta play defense, I gotta rebound, I gotta talk, I could have 40 and not talk and not bring energy. But it's just trying to have an all-around game, just trying to be the leader I can be, get the pace up.

There aren't really many compliments flying around with me and my friends. It's a lot of tough love. But you know, that love is there, and if you need to have a serious conversation, you just gotta wait for the right time to do it.

There's something so romantic about being broke in New York. You gotta do it. You have to live there once without any money, and then you have to live there when you have money. Let me tell you, of the two, the latter is far better.

I would want people to be their own superheroes, save their own days, know that nobody else is gonna do it for you. You have to pick yourself up out of your dark moment; you gotta be your own source of light, just like I was for me.

You realize that you can't win 'em all. You try to win 'em all; you get frustrated, but you gotta have a short fuse either way. Success in the NFL is just as deadly as allowing yourself to kinda wallow in sorrow. It works both ways.

Music is my way of taking my mind away from the game. When I'm singing, you don't got anything to worry about. Don't gotta worry about scoring however many points or winning the game. No matter how good or how bad you are, it's fun.

I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don't want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel.

You don't have to call it God or Jesus. That's religious humbug to a lot of people, but you've gotta believe that nature and spiritual things surround us. That is what put us here! I thank the universe for that every day of my life.

I've always worked out. I've always gone to the gym. But it was always a chore, and it was always, like, 'Man, I've gotta go do this because if I don't I'll get all dumpy and out of shape and then no one will hire me for good roles.'

Other people gotta be told when to go to the gym, what to work out, what to work on, what to do. For me, it was always my own self-motivation of maybe just wanting to make it out of Compton. I was like that with everything in my life.

I get bored real easy. I'm so used to L.A. and the pace that when I go home now I start thinking, 'Something's not right, something's not feelin' right.' I just gotta do what I gotta do in Oklahoma and get back to the fast-paced city.

I used the principles of Kickstarter to make 'She's Gotta Have It.' We filmed that in 1985 to 1986. The final cost was $175,000. I didn't have that money. It was friends, grants, donations. We saved our bottles for the nickel deposit.

In a story, you have to have a theme and an angle, you have to have a beginning, middle and an end. You have to have a defining moment and kick it to death. You gotta be able to recognize that, by the way. It probably takes experience.

'The Odyssey' is the great tale, and I was really taken by 'The Iliad,' so I dig into those things, and when I was a kid I didn't. You've gotta have a certain level of understanding yourself before that stuff really starts to resonate.

When I find myself whining, and I'm like, 'God, it's wet,' there will always be one guy who never got into the heat tent, who didn't get past the coffee, and he's still there, and this guy is smiling. You know, I gotta get over myself.

You have to fall. You have to understand what that feels like. For what I want in my life, and for where I want to go with this music, you gotta be humiliated, man. You gotta understand what that feels like. It just makes you stronger.

I still remember the first gig where I got people going, it was Rascals in New Jersey, and the place was packed. I was scared. People were expecting me to be funny. I gotta be honest, every time I walk into a club, it's that same fear.

The day after high school, I was off to basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Station. You gotta understand, we didn't care about sports. We wanted to win the war. We wanted to win the war! And at the time, we didn't know if we would.

My kids are the most inspiring thing that pushes me. It used to be because they were born, and I had to take care of them. Now it's because my son raps, and he's better than me. So now I gotta keep up with him, you know what I'm saying?

I had to realize that you can't try to get money, support yourself, and grind doing whatchu need to do at the same time. The music is the grind. You really gotta grind. You gotta find your way around. You can't be stuck tryna get there.

I always have issues with trust. I'm a New Yorker... Really, I think trust is something that comes from the gut. And I think you have to - it's probably the worst advice to give people - but I think you gotta trust people from your gut.

That was the moment I wanted to use bitcoin: when I saw Harriet Tubman on a $20 bill. It's like, when you see all the slave movies, it's like, why you gotta keep reminding us about slavery? Why don't you put Michael Jordan on a $20 bill?

I'm just really a free spirit. You gotta be like that. 'Cause life ain't that complicated. It's only that complicated when you make it that way. I just wanna wake up and move with the way it goes. If it's meant to happen, it will happen.

Girls and guys are like a bus stop - they come and go. You never know, like, who's going to be the right one, and what I've been taught is you really gotta figure out who you are first before you can really give yourself to someone else.

The thing about Luke Cage that makes him different is - on the surface is he's a hero for hire; Luke Cage wants to get paid. Luke Cage in the comic books is like, 'I'm doing this stuff. It's all well and good, but I gotta make a dollar.'

You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.

It seems to me like Mother Nature's mercy and forgiveness have run dry, as we ceaselessly abuse her and take her for granted in order for us to continue our addiction to using fossil fuels. I've gotta say, I don't blame her. Not one bit.

You've gotta leave enough space for your actors to bring stuff to the table and whatever the weather's doing that day or what the light's like. Things can shift, and you have to be malleable. Every day is a different feeling and a change.

I think about fanaticism - oblivion awaits, especially for minor writers, so you have to be a fanatic; you have to be a crank to keep going, but on the other hand, what else would you do with the rest of your life? You gotta do something.

I'm like, 'Wow, I guess a lot of people didn't have this type of upbringing'... that old world technique of, you know, nothing's given to you, you've gotta work for everything you've done... It's just different from what I'm seeing today.

Sometimes I gotta look in the mirror and say, 'Hey, they're still saying you're too fat, but you're here! They gotta take it or leave it.' And in most cases, if they leave it, it's all good because they don't need to be in my space anyway.

I guess you kind of got to realize that once you in a marriage, whatever it is, you gotta deal with it. Not necessarily that you got to accept it, but you have to deal with it and try your best to make it work for you, for the both of you.

I'm not really a line type of guy. I mean, pick-up lines work for some guys. You gotta really sell that thing hard. I did try one pick-up line, and it failed miserably. I thought it was really funny, but the girl didn't find it very funny.

I grew up with four T.V. channels. If you missed a show, you missed it. You gotta wait a week for the next one. I'd mail-order books: take a quarter, get an envelope, send off for it and wait until it arrived. I grew up waiting for things.

There's only one cook in the kitchen, only one chef. I let the soloists do their thing - you've gotta let a man do a solo the way he wants - but as far as picking the tunes and working on the arrangements, I take full responsibility for it.

I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song.

A guy is a lump like a doughnut. So, first you gotta get rid of all the stuff his mom did to him. And then you gotta get rid of all that macho crap that they pick up from beer commercials. And then there's my personal favorite, the male ego.

One of the things I've realised is that I am very simple. My wife asked me once if I loved her. I said: 'Look love, I'm a simple man. I love you. End of story.' But I guess you gotta keep saying it with women. I guess she needed reassurance.

I feel like my biggest competition is myself. A lot of kids get caught up in the comparing game - comparing themselves with Michael Jackson, comparing themselves with Michael Jordan. You gotta be your best. You gotta overcome your own fears.

But this is Miami, you can't come to Miami and not show any skin. You gotta show something. If you're all covered up in this heat, you're gonna make me pass out out just to look at you. It's sweaty in Miami-but the diamonds will keep me cool.

I've never had issues with popularity. I was always a popular guy... I've always had friends and loved ones and everything, so it wasn't like, 'Oh man, I gotta fill some void that was left by high school.' I had a great high-school experience.

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