Is the creative process similar when you’re writing kids books and rapping?
It’s different because when you’re rapping you’re speaking to adults, but when you’re speaking to kids you gotta get in their mindset a little bit, get in their space. When I started writing children’s books I would ask kids, the kids at my mom’s school, “What do you go through in school, what are some problems you had?” You talk about your daughter in your lyrics. Tell us about her. She’s 11 now. She reads to me! She recites Shakespeare. She’s reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (by Maya Angelou, Random, 1969) You sound so proud. Yeah. Definitely. Did you read a lot as a kid? I enjoyed reading Encyclopedia Brown. And my mother would force me to do book reports. I had to do book reports on Martin Luther King, Nat Turner. We did a lot of black history. Some of the things I chose because I was into that. Your mom’s on the board of your foundation. She must be a big influence on you. She is probably the biggest influence on me, besides God. My mother raised me and instilled a lot of d
