What I'm trying to tell people is that police brutality in the 'hood is nothing new. And the thing is that whether this guy, the cop killer in my song, is real or not, believe it, there are people at that point.
In the early '80s, it was hard to find celebrities you can identify with if you lived in the hood. There weren't any rap videos at the time.
I'm from the burbs. I've been in the hood, but I don't live there. I have lived in the hood, but I don't live there anymore. I lived in Harlem, and that was crazy, even though Harlem is a lot nicer than it used to be.
As blacks, all we got is sports and entertainment. That's the only way out the hood sometimes.
Yeah, I was a brother on the streets of Compton doing a lot of things most people look down on but it did pay off. Then we started rapping about real stuff that shook up the LAPD and the FBI. But we got our message across big time, and everyone in America started paying attention to the boys in the hood.
You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.
It take a certain type of man to teach, to be far from hood but to understand the streets.
I'm still so down to earth and regular. I still be in the projects, I still be in the hood - just regular.
If I hadn't made it as an actor, I might have wound up a hood.
And I... started off dumb, raised by the hoodrats, listen to the radio wishin that i could rap.
In the hood, you have a problem with somebody, you have to deal with it. The outcome is pretty immediate.
'New Jack City' and 'Boyz 'N the Hood' are realities, but movies like 'Strictly Business' are realities, too.
It is what it is but I do me and I think people respect that. They see me out in the hood by myself or with wifey and I don't have no bodyguards.
When I was a kid, my aunt snuck us into see 'Boyz n the Hood.'
I may not be a role model, but I most definitely could be motivation for a lot of people in the hoods.
I come from making money in the streets. The streets all I know. All my family is still in the streets. So, it's going to be hard to pull me right back into that. When I ain't doing no shows four days out of the week, I may be in my hood or at my grandma's house in the hood. But yes, I got a kid. I got to get more serious about the music so he don't get dragged into that life.
The boys in the hood are always hard.
I'm going to make my own 'Trapped In The Closet' one day, about a black kid growing up in the hood.
