All I'm trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.
America wants its respect.
Biggie came at a time just like Hitler did with the Germans.
Death Row East is gonna be a personification of what we did on the West Side. We gonna prove once that all these people talking 'bout a East Coast West Coast war.
Don't change on me. Don't extort me unless you intend to do it forever.
Dre was one of my heros in the music industry. If he's not down for his homeboys, I don't wanna be a part of him or around him.
Even if they give me the maximum sentence, that's still my job.
Even though I'm innocent of the charge they gave me, I'm not innocent in terms of the way I was acting. I had a job to do and I never showed up.
Every female wanna come up to me and show me how much they're not attracted to me... these minority women... they're the only women I can get cause everyone else is scared of me.
Everybody raps. We rap to make money. We do business. Ain't no other record company out there that sold as many records as we did.
From now on, it's not going to be a strictly black thing with me. I apologized to Quincy Jones for the stuff I said about him and his wives.
Hip Hop was supposed to be this new thing that had no boundaries and was so different to everyday music. As long as it has soul to it, hip hop can live on.
I ain't calling me God. I'm just doing my part on where I think hip hop should go. I think hip hop should be about more money, crazier sounds, different beats.
I appreciate them stickin' up for me when everyone was kickin me when I was down. That's love and I'll never trade that.
I can make my way in this business besides rapping.
I can only be committed to my work or my wife. I didn't want to hurt her; she's a good person.
I didn't know I was shot in the head yet. I didn't feel nothing. Puffy was standing back. They shot me in my head five times.
I do not suggest that children buy this album. There's a lot of cursing. There's a lot of raw game that needs to be discussed in a family moment before you let them listen.
I don't have no fear of death. My only fear is coming back reincarnated.
I don't have to talk about whether or not I got raped in jail.
I don't see myself being special; I just see myself having more responsibilities than the next man. People look to me to do things for them, to have answers.
I feel that what was done in the dark will come to light. There are secrets everybody's gonna find out about.
I just don't know how to deal with so many people giving me that much affection. I never had that in my life.
I just put out a hardcore double album. Next I'm gonna put out an introspective album.
I just spent 11 and a half months in a maximum-security jail, got shot five times, and was wrongly convicted of a crime I didn't commit.
I know my life's not in danger. They shouldn't feel like they gotta worry about me.
I never killed anybody, I never raped anybody, I never committed no crimes that weren't honorable.
I swear to God, the farthest thing from my mind was sympathy. All I could think of was, Stand up and fight for your life like you fight for your life in this hospital.
I think I'm a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority if it's authority that I respect.
I used to believe I could never be touched. Now I'm more careful because I have been shot. I know what that feels like. My choices have already been made.
I went in cold turkey, read, God was with me... The movie is about kids and their coming of age. It's not a hip hop movie. My character is Roland Bishop, a psychotic, very violent individual.
I worked hard all my life as far as this music business. I dreamed of the day when I could go to New York and feel comfortable and they could come out here and be comfortable.
I would rather have been shot straight-up in cold blood-but to be set up? By people who you trusted? That's bad.
I wouldn't sit down and have a conversation with Puffy and Biggie because that's like Scarface sitting down with the dude he's hoping to rule. They are not on my level.
I'd be in my hotel room, smoking too much, drinking, going to clubs, just being numb. That was being in jail to me. I wasn't happy at all on the streets. That was the addict speaking.
I'll probably be punished for hard living.
I'm 23 years old. I might just be my mother's child, but in all reality, I'm everybody's child. Nobody raised me; I was raised in this society.
I'm a reflection of the community.
I'm calling for dialogue. I'm gathering attention for dialogue which is what you do in a struggle for power.
I'm not a gangsta rapper. I rap about things that happen to me. I got shot five times. People was trying to kill me.
I'm the rebel totally going against the grain. I always want to do the extreme. I want to get as many people looking as possible.
If anybody finds Janet, tell her I'm looking for her. She ain't my enemy. I want her to know that. She met me at a time in my life when I was real immature.
If Colin Powell was president, I'd follow him. I wanna get into politics. That's the way for us to overcome a lot of our obstacles.
If I win and get the money, then the Oakland Police department is going to buy a boys' home, me a house, my family a house, and a Stop Police Brutality Center.
If you believe in God, believe in Death Row East.
If you make me do it, then I don't wanna do it, I don't care how many albums you brought.
If you're a black man, they really call you out and have you deal with them.
In Marin City it seemed like things were real country. Everything was straightforward. Poverty was straightforward.
In my mind I'm a blind man doin' time.
In spite of the gangs and all that we still came up with this culture. We never got what we deserved.
Instead of of being so metaphorical with the rhyme, I was encouraged to go straight at it and hit it dead on and not waste time trying to cover things.
Is it a crime, to fight, for what is mine?
It seems like every time you come up something happens to bring you back down.
It's a struggle for every young Black man. You know how it is, only God can judge us.
It's no longer a fad to be down for the young Black male. Everybody wants to go past. Like the gangster stuff, it just got exploited.
It's the game of life. Do I win or do I lose? One day they're gonna shut the game down. I gotta have as much fun and go around the board as many times as I can before it's my turn to leave.
Let the Lord judge the criminals.
My mama always used to tell me: 'If you can't find somethin' to live for, you best find somethin' to die for.'
My music will mean something. I'll have my own production company. I'm doing my own movies. I have my own restaurant. I just wanna expand.
Nobody ever came to save me. They just watch what happen to you.
People on the East coast are real proud and real cultural and real strong like we are on the west coast.
Puffy wrote me while I was in jail. I wrote him back that I don't got no problems with him. I don't want it to be fighting, I just wanna make my money.
Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.
Recognize us. By sales and by representing.
Snoop went on trial for murder. Somebody said Dre was in the car.
Somebody help me, tell me where to go from here cause even Thugs cry, but do the Lord care?
Sometimes when I'm drunk I think to myself, Should I just stop trying and give up? They're waiting for me to give up. So this is just a fun little game that I cry at sometime.
The Bay is the type of place where if you ain't there, they're gonna talk about you.
The first two days in prison, I had to go through what life is like when you've been smoking weed for as long as I have and then you stop. I didn't know myself.
The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams.
The only time I have problems is when I sleep.
There's nobody in the business strong enough to scare me.
They thought they were just gonna make millions and there wasn't gonna be no problems? You wanna be in the rap game, hustle for it just like I had to do.
This ain't no game. If this was chess, we'd be yelling checkmate three years ago.
Thug Life to me is dead.
Tupac the son of the Black Panther, and Tupac the rider. Those are the two people inside of me. I was raised off those ideals.
We all gonna die , we bleed from similar veins.
We already run these streets out here. We got the ways to make them use their talents to the maximum affect. And thats what it's about.
What I learned in jail is that I can't change. I can't live a different lifestyle-this is it. This is the life that they gave and this is the life that I made.
When the charge first came up, I hated black women. Then, going to trial, I started seeing the black women that was helping me. It's mostly black female guards. They treat me with human respect.
When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character.
Whether I show up for work or not, the evil forces are going to be at me. They're going to come 100 percent.
With all my fans I got a family again.
You can't disrespect the love. You can't disrespect the peace treaty.
You never know what's going on in somebody's mind. There's a lot of pressure on someone growing up. You have to watch it.
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