Do you ever consider retirement?

From time to time I do consider it. It’s a busy life. So you want to sit back and think about doing different things and imagine what it’d be like. Deion Sanders was able to suit up for a baseball game and a football game in the same day. You think about him; you go, "Wow, what else should I do?"

What would you be doing if you weren’t rapping?

I’d be still creating. It could be screenplays, it could be bottled water, it could be a farm industry. It could be making up my own deodorant, it could be studying to be an engineer—highly unlikely, that one. But who knows?

I saw that you were protesting the Eric Garner verdict in New York City with Russell Simmons the other night. Do you have the activist calling at all?

But we’re already that. We’re already activists. I’m looking at what’s happening to the world, and I’m waiting for people to stop being scared. Mainly whites in power and in government, to not be scared of the race issue. Not be scared to say, "This is wrong, and this has to change." Not be scared to do what’s right.

What do you think people are scared of?

Votes. Their career. Backlash. They’re confused; they don’t really know much about it. We’re all human beings. So I understand being scared. But at some point, you got to come out and do the right thing. No matter who you are, you got to put the people first. Compassion, and your love for people, has to exist. And your love to humanity has to exist. It can’t just always be about your career, your money, your stature, where you think you belong in this government. You’ve got to be about reality and love.

You’ve been in New York so long and seen Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo. Are you surprised that cops are still killing innocent people?

Unfortunately, I’m not surprised cops are still murdering people. But I am surprised that the law enforcement did not do the correct thing with illegal chokeholds. A chokehold because of a man stating his piece—telling them he didn’t do anything. An illegal chokehold! It’s embarrassing to New York, and it’s embarrassing to the country. I’ve got to go around the world, and people will ask me, "What’s wrong with America?" This is why they don’t like us. And this is why they’re going to beat us. When they see that weakness, they’re seeing a way to take us down. The outside world, they’ve already seen that. But even more now with the apartheidisms that’s going on today. We can sweep it under the rug, but when we sweep it under the rug, the rest of the world smells the debris.

What do you say when people ask what’s wrong with America?

I say America’s about fighters, and we fight each other sometimes, but that’s what family does. I try to make up shit, because it’s embarrassing, and they see through it. If the plane brings me to Paris and all over the news is the police shooting down dark people in the streets? I’d look at all of them as savages. And I’d say, "Wow, what’s wrong?" It’s transparent. They see what’s going on over here. And they laugh at our government and law enforcement. That’s one more for them. They’re really the civilized ones. And they see everyone as being more civilized than America. And we’ve got nothing to say.

What’s the role of an artist in this situation?

The situation has created the artist to begin with. It’s the backdrop to KRS-One’s greatest album, By All Means Necessary. It’s the backdrop to N.W.A.’s world-changing albums and The Chronic. The Chronic is all about the Rodney King verdict—besides him dissing the people he had to dis, it’s about the Rodney King verdict and the riots. It makes artists create and speak. The way James Baldwin did. The way Stevie Wonder did. The way Marvin Gaye said, "What’s going on?" We are the results of the bullshit. I’m here, partially, because of the bullshit that’s been going on. I’m a voice. I wouldn’t know that Compton existed in 1988, 1989, if it weren’t for those geniuses from that side called N.W.A. I wouldn’t have even known the place existed. I wouldn’t have known they suffered from the same stuff we suffered from in Queensbridge. We were beating our African drums to each other the same way we’ve always done since the beginning of time. It’s crazy. But that’s what we were doing. But rap music has never respected politics. We’ve never trusted anything. That’s the way the streets are. But it’s a whole new day. The guys who talked against the system—now the people want that person, that voice, to help change the system.