I’m probably proudest of being able to lift a lot of us out of the ’hood. That’s the biggest thing, that I’ve been able to employ a lot of people and give them opportunities.
I came from a crew, and to me, all the guys I rapped with were better than me, so I was surprised when I was the breakout one. It was definitely a cool thing.
It’s great to be able to employ people who other people wouldn’t consider viable employees.
If you can draw something from my life that helps, more power to you.
As a rapper, you sort of act in music videos and in the persona you adopt onstage. You kinda have to put yourself out there and be courageous even to be a rapper. So, to step into acting was not that difficult a transition to make.
I definitely think we need to lean more on God. And I do think we need to praise, because we need to give it outward. You know, whenever you think you’re in tough circumstances, there’s always somebody who’s in a worse position than you.
Award shows, like the Grammys, were tough on us early in hip-hop, not even televising our categories or splitting them up on best male or female or any of that. We had to earn them.
Business is fun. Controlling your own destiny is fun. Creating an idea and turning it into a movie; finding an artist and guiding their career and bringing them to some type of status – there’s joy in that.
Having Black hair is unique in that Black women change up styles a lot. You can walk down one street block in New York City and see 10 different hairstyles that Black women are wearing: straight curls, short cuts, braids – we really run the gamut.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m way more of a joker than I am a serious person.
I often find it’s just the confidence that makes you sexy, not what your body looks like. It’s how you feel about yourself that makes you sexy.
When it came time to be a professional rapper, I wouldn’t sign anything without reading it. There was no way I was going to have people make decisions for me or wake up one day and find that I was broke because I never bothered to read a contract.
When I’m wearing too-high heels and swaying my hips, I do that Sharon Stone kind of thing – she has the sexiest walk, a New York cool thing that throws you back.
There are different flavours of sexiness.
I love music. I’ve just been putting studios together, here and at my house in New Jersey and so I can always make music and express my ideas and work with people to fine tune them to where they need to be.
When I’m doing something I love, I can lose sleep. I can go and go and go and go. My work ethic is pretty intense. But when it comes to doing something that I don’t love every day, I’m not very good at it. That’s called work, and I don’t like work that much.
To me, I always felt like I was carrying a torch for women of any size to be themselves – it doesn’t matter whether you’re a size 2 or a 22, just be who you are.
You can’t let fear paralyze you. The worse that can happen is you fail, but guess what: You get up and try again. Feel that pain, get over it, get up, dust yourself off and keep it moving.
To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things. My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco.
I have a no-die clause in every movie. The black people can’t be dying all the time.
It’s not always easy to do the right thing. But doing the right thing makes you strong; it builds character; it forces you to make decisions based upon your beliefs and not what other people think. In life, and in business, you have to stand for what you believe in and sometimes you have to stand alone. But what makes you a leader is having the courage of your convictions.