Everything has become very corporate and very careful. Before we had a real democracy going and there were a lot of freedoms and now there's this terrorism thing that everybody's focused on, which is really a boondoggle in my opinion. It's just an excuse to clamp down on people's free speech. And corporations intimidate people and everybody's gotten intimidated and that's really what it is, and they just keep going along. It's almost like - a little bit like that Charlie Chaplin movie, Modern Times, or 1984, Orwell
My homies hold me down, really. I talk to Baby, Jeezy, Rozay, Nicki, everybody, from jail. Just call once in a while and holla at people like, 'Yo what's up? What's life like out there?' for people to give me a report of what's going on.
I'm just going to give them everything I have to give as a player and as a man on and off the field. I'm hoping with me doing that and being the leader that I am, it trickles down and becomes so contagious that everybody is doing it. That's how you change a program around with everybody buying in and believing in the same thing.
A lot of people just send me beats, and I pick the ones I like. See, once I said I was doing my album - because I know everybody and they mama - everybody just got in touch with me.
I daydream just like everybody else. I just do it with my body facing the field, so everybody thinks I'm paying attention.
My show mode is that the dressing room is like going into the cockpit. Going down the stairs is like going on the runway, and once we begin performing, it's flight time. I'm just floatin' on that stage.
I've chosen a life that's so different from everybody else's that it cuts me off from them. Practically everybody I know treats me like a guest celebrity. Of course it's my own fault. I feel so damn alone sometimes, I feel like I could just float away into the stratosphere and everybody would stand there looking up at me and not one would haul me back down to earth. No ropes.
Everybody wants that spot: everybody wants to beat Nicola Adams. Everybody wants to be the Olympic champion; everybody wants to beat the Olympic champion. It's made me train that much harder and stay that much more focused. I guess, in a way, I've got them to thank for keeping me motivated and focused on the job I need to do.
I bombed so much as a standup that messing up doesn't matter to me anymore. I kind of enjoy bombing sometimes - I try and make everybody hate me more. Like, once I know it's not going well, I can just have fun.
I mean, you're just not going to like somebody and he's not going to like you. But you're going to go out there and play. And you're going to give the other seven or eight guys on that field a chance to win. And that's just the way it's going to be.
Everybody's not going to like jazz, let's just be honest about it. Everybody doesn't like everything. There's a disconnect in generations and some people just aren't going to feel that music.
In international meets, like the Olympics and Asian Games, drug tests are mandatory. When everything is in place, then only will the records be ratified. I am not saying that people are taking drugs. Everybody knows what things are going on on the field. I know; everybody knows what's going on.
I want to tell everybody that you won't hear me trying to pop bottles in the club and all that kind of stuff. It's just not me and I think as long as you stay within your element and your age bracket, sure you're going a couple of young folks and teens, but that's not who I'm focused on. I'm really not. I love whoever supports, but I'm just not going to try and go back there because times have changed. If you don't move with the times, you'll get left off. I'm trying to change with the times.
I came from a very loving home, had a happy life with no great aspirations, but going to the seminary changed me. There was a chunk of my childhood missing. Once I'd realised it wasn't for me, I still felt a tremendous pressure to continue for fear of letting everybody down.
The Wall Street Dow Jones up and down thing that's moving when the stock market's open? That thing freaks me out. It's up, it's down, it's just maddening to me. I guess I'm such a super-focused kind of person that I get distracted really easy. I'll watch that thing, and it's like I'm losing money, I'm getting money. It's just crazy.
When I was 11, I burned a field down by mistake. It was an empty field, probably about 10 acres in size. Me and my friend were lighting firecrackers, and we ended up burning down the entire field. We got found out, and I think I was grounded for about three months.