Since you’ve been around for a while, how do you not get jaded by things you see in hip-hop? How I see the state of hip-hop now is how I’ve always seen it. It’s always a wave of something else. It was a wave of Master P. It was a wave of Soulja Boy. It was a wave of MC Hammer. It was a wave of Eminem. It was wave of Jay-Z and it’s still a wave of Jay-Z. Some people just have that longevity juice.

I see the culture now, I’m still happy that young people are coming up out of poverty, doing something positive, like music. I’m not one of those [people] that bash the young ones that are coming up that don’t do what I do. I take pride in lyrics, I take pride in music and staying on beat and being on key. I take pride in those things. I’m not one of those guys that hate; I congratulate. So, when I see it’s still sprouting like this and all these people are on the road now, back when I was on the road, there wasn’t many of us on the road. It was me, Talib Kweli, Atmosphere and stuff like that. Wasn’t a lot of people touring. Now a lot of people, I think, do it out of necessity because of the decline in sales, physical product, this, that and the other. But I think that it’s a beautiful thing.

The fact that we’re still here, a lot of the older cats tend to think, Oh, these mumble rappers… You have that. You also have J. Cole. You also have Kendrick [Lamar]. You also have Aesop Rock. Everything is out there for you. You got Lil Dicky, whatever you wanna listen to, it’s out there. Drake is out there. The Weeknd is out there. Travis Scott is out there. It’s wonderful. People tend to hone in on what they don’t appreciate because they do it a bit different. I don’t bash Lil Yachty. I don’t bash 21 Savage. I don’t bash Lil Uzi Vert. I don’t wanna really say nothing about the way guys are dressing these days. When you look at Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Melle Mel and all them, they had on some crazy stuff back in the day. Stuff that you wouldn’t wear regularly every day, you know? It’s always a fashion thing. I’ve never seen it go to dresses and blouses, but if you like it, I love it. I don’t hate on the state of hip-hop.