KRS-One

I am a youth minister, ordained by the Riverside Church in upper New York. But to declare myself a minister and begin to preach from the pulpit, from the Bible, to a congregation and to build a church, so to speak - I don't have a desire for that.

When I was about 15 years old, I began to embark on an MC career but also to study philosophy with an emphasis on theology.

In one sense, I wanted to study philosophy and theology, getting into the history of the Bible. I went through that for, like, two years while I took a desk job at Warners. It was very depressing but exhilarating at the same time.

For me, I see myself as a role model because, everything I do, there is a person somewhere who needs to hear me spread a message of non-violent conflict resolution.

This is the problem with the United States: there's no leadership. A leader would say, 'Police brutality is an oxymoron. There are no brutal police. The minute you become brutal you're no longer police.' So, what, we're not dealing with police. We're dealing with a federally authorized gang.

I flew everywhere for the first 10 years of my career, and I started to not like commercial transport. I just don't feel safe.

Rap is no longer a pastime; this is a worldwide profession.

Every ghetto kid that walks the earth can see something in KRS-One that reminds him of himself.

There is no forgiveness, justice, or healing on any level when hate is involved.

Even with so many artists using auto-tune, there's still a growing group of artists rising up and going in the opposite direction, making music that's real and fresh. And those cats are getting back to the basics without auto-tune. And a lot of those cats are packing out venues without getting played on the radio!

When we say, 'Look, Donald Trump was a friend to hip hop back in the day; so was Bill Clinton,' It doesn't mean that because he was a friend to hip hop back in the day, that the same Bill Clinton wasn't at the lead of this mass incarceration of African Americans today.

Bring the arts back, and treat it with respect.