12 Notes: On Life and Creativity

when I think about Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream—that every individual would be afforded equal rights—I can’t help but think how the dreams of one are inextricably linked to the dreams of another. Without MLK’s hope for the collective, we may not have given ourselves the personal liberties to believe it as individuals. I didn’t always view myself

Treat people well because it’s the right thing to do. Always work on yourself first because then, and only then, can you become a better musician, creative, executive, or whatever else it is that you strive to be.

Most important, we stayed unified, and when you operate as a unit, you learn to develop a collective set of coping mechanisms in order to prevent the anger from bubbling over. Humor and wit, coupled with our passion for music, was truly how we powered through. There was this running joke on the road that whenever we were confronted with the stateme

Everything we do is an extension of the history that came before us, and if we don’t recognize it, we’re in danger of repeating some of the same nonsense that went down in the past. It’s a beautiful thing to reflect and learn, rather than to reject and repeat.

remember the words of my beloved little brother, Lloyd. Before his unbearable passing in 1998, he told me that one of the things you realize when you’re dying is that you’ve wasted a lot of time. When one particular individual, who didn’t know that Lloyd was retiring due to a cancerous tumor in his kidney, asked Lloyd how he was going to identify h

Immersing yourself in the native culture of a particular place is an incredibly important aspect of life as it ultimately prevents you from trying to force your culture onto everybody else.

what you do when no one is watching is the foundation that you build your life and career on. Build it on solid ground and you’ll be around until the end of time.

rap was here to stay;

The time of least attention is often when you can see the most clearly, without having the opinions of others as a distraction.