I'm a mudboy. I came from the mud, oozed out the concrete. I'm not a rose. I'm a mudboy: I came from nothing.

I got a whole different mindset from living in Senegal and being there. I learned a lot of things, met a lot of people, and got to really find out what I wanted to work for and who I want to be and who I want to help and who I'm doing it for.

A Mudboy is just somebody who came from nothing: you know, who turned nothing into something. You know, when I was in Africa, in the rain, I walk around in, like, mud, you know, the sand would turn to mud, and you are not getting out of that.

When I was in Milwaukee, I would go into this sneaker shop near my mom's salon and chop it up with the older heads about music. At school, I would make drum noises on the table so much that I would always get suspended.

When I'm away from New York, the thing I miss the most is the food. I miss going to my deli to get a pomegranate-flavored aloe water and a chop cheese. That's my favorite sandwich.

It's all about always putting in that time and that work and also, separating yourself for the better. Put yourself around good things, better people, and things like that.

In Harlem, Facebook was big. Kids would make Facebook 'families,' where they would change their last name on Facebook and have the same last name as their friends. I had this girl I was talking to, and she changed her last name to West, so I changed mine to West, too. It wasn't until later that I took the 't' off.

I remember when I did 'Live SheckWes, Die SheckWes,' and when I did 'Mo Bamba,' I one-taked those because it came from my heart.

When you live in the projects, everything you need is in a mile radius: a basketball court, an indoor gym, a school, a grocery store, a shopping center.