A lot of times, we believe what the media says about us or what our awards or accolades say about us instead of what God says about us.
The biggest accolades aren't the Grammys for me. It's creating opportunities for people.
My views as a Christian means there's a moral plumb line that I'm fighting to adhere to.
It is possible to call God 'Lord,' to feel emotionally connected to faith, to do the altruistic things and still not want God.
You don't realize you're vying for the approval of everyone so much until being yourself is not approved of.
When you have legends who want to do music with you, and you befriend the Kendrick Lamars and the Chance the Rappers, that's due to you really being authentically hip-hop and not being contemporary Christian.
People who've only seen me perform might assume that I'm confident and that being ignored wouldn't bother me - but it does.
My mother, my relatives, and closest friends have risked their lives in the area of law enforcement and corrections, so I never have and never will say, 'I hate police.'
History doesn't give credence for resorting to violence to have your voice heard.
For me, 2016-17 was hell, and there's no way around it for me. I went through pain, depression, fear, doubt, and all of that was a journey that I was able to write through, and then I wrote when I was coming out of that dark place as well.
Old habits die hard, and if you're not careful, the person you used to be can overtake the person you're trying to become.
Honestly, the pains of humanity have been draining me.
My graduation was an amazing moment for my family, my community. In my early childhood, we lived on a subsidized income, with government assistance - at one point when I was growing up, my mother was making $14,000 a year. Now I had made it out of the hood, so to speak.
It's unfortunate that myself, as a black man, cannot care about the issues that impact the black community without being seeing as a race-baiter or without being seen as someone who doesn't care about any other ethnic groups.
Gandhi said it; Frederick Douglass said it. A lot of people have probably said 'It's not Christ that I have a problem with, it's his people.' And that was my struggle: it's God's people. I felt disenfranchisement. I felt so much abuse from organized religion because I'm walking in a direction that a lot of them couldn't fathom and can't understand.
People have got to form some kind of unified fronts where you know who your allies are, you know who your friends are, and really begin to work together to create different kinds of infrastructures to protect one another and to help one another thrive.
When I hung out with my Uncle Chris, things got real. He was fun, talkative, and loud. He was the life of the party and a magnet for mischief. Since he saw the world through a gangsta's lens, he wanted me to become tough and aggressive.
America has this fascination with glorifying the villain and not talking about the trials and tribulations. We tell the story of the successful villain a lot of times, but we don't tell the story of the people who don't come out so successful, and we don't tell the story of all the bystanders of that choice.
Pain can be a haunting reminder to appreciate every waking moment.
I'm not a country music fan, so if you slide me some music and say, 'You gotta check this out; it's country,' I'm going to be a little hesitant to listen, and I think if someone says, 'Hey, you gotta listen to this guy rap; he's Christian,' you're like, 'I don't identify as Christian, so not really sure I want to listen to that.'
