Andre Benjamin quotes:

I think a lot of African-American kids don't have fathers to teach them how to dress, so you end up being taught by pictures in magazine and movies. You see cowboys, Indians, old Hollywood films, Cary Grant. It has an effect on you.

If you look at old football pictures, the jerseys were hanging, the sleeves were dangling, but now everything is tucked and tailored.

When the OutKast sound changed and I started producing my own records, I would mirror what I thought that character doing that music would look like. As the sound got a little wilder, freakier and funkier, so did the clothes. Then when the sound got more sophisticated, the clothes changed again.

Hip-hop don't have no fresh energy, none at all. It's money driven, everybody tryin' to make that cheque, nobody putting art in their albums any more.

They can bite, but cannot be us, They can come and pick up little slang but cannot see us, You ought to be ashamed trying to fit in my adidas, So Run like DMC like you don't know you got no heater

The rap game has to save itself. Everybody's saving it. People like Lil Wayne is saving it. He's bringing energy to it.

It's harder to be a success, globally, and be artistic. Harder to have that balance than just to be artistic when nobody understands you.

Australia is about as far away as you can get. I like that.

Look at Scottish guys wearing kilts - you could look at them and laugh, but the way they carry themselves, how can you? You can wear some of the weirdest things and be cool. If you believe in it, that's what makes it cool.

The world doesn't need another clothing company. But it does need a certain funk.

Askin what happened to the feelin that her and me had, I pray so much about it, need some knee pads.

It's funny, I don't even consider myself a rapper, I don't consider myself a designer, or even an actor. I just like creating stuff and trying to make good work, whatever it is. I don't care if it's designing toothbrushes. It's just making cool stuff to leave behind, that's all it is, it's nothing more.

I had six silly tattoos done when I was young and I bitterly regret them. I've thought about laser surgery, but that leaves a scar, so I'm just leaving them.

Sometimes nostalgia is a cage.

I think it's real important to show style now. The majority of style right now is to act like you don't have style at all, so most companies are getting rich off clothes that look torn, clothes that look worn.

If models are made for modeling, thick girls are made for cuddling.

Nothing lasts forever, so what makes love the exception.

Everybody's got opinions on the way you're livin', But see, they can't fill your shoes.

Everyone has an addiction, mine happens to be you.

I don't mind opinions, because you like something or you don't like something, but to say things about your personal life? I'm like, "Man, let me quit reading this. 'Cause I'll stab everybody."

You download it for free, we get charged back for it. I know you're saying, "They won't know, they won't miss it, Besides, I ain't a thief, they won't pay me a visit." So, if I come to your job, take your corn on the cob, And take a couple kernels off it, that would be alright with you?

To be honest, I don't necessarily think you have to be an actor to act. You don't have to be a musician to make great music. If it comes along and you put your all into it, the outcome is what's important.

I bet you never heard of a playa with no game, Told the truth to get what I want, but shot it with no shame. Take this music dead serious while others entertain. I see they makin' they paper so I guess I can't complain...or can I? I feel they disrespectin' the whole thang. Them hooks like sellin' dope to black folks, And I choke when the food they serve ain't tastin' right, My stomach can't digest it even when I bless it...

I've learned that I'm most powerful when I'm doing my art.

SAD, BUT ONE DAY OUR KIDS WILL HAVE TO VISIT MUSEUMS TO SEE WHAT A LADY LOOKS LIKE.

People see you on screen and they like you, but they never really get a chance to meet you. When you're doing music, you know you have to go sit at in-stores, and you're actually in the street, so there's more of a hands-on kind of thing.

You look in the mirror everyday and you see the same thing. As an entertainer, you wanna see something new.

I rarely drink, I don't smoke, so my vice is probably creating. I'm addicted to creating. And women.

I met a gypsy and she hipped me to some life game, To stimulate, then activate the left and right brain. Said, 'Baby boy, you only funky as your last cut. You focus on the past, your ass'll be a has-what.' That's one to live by, or either that's one to die to.

I said, 'What you wanna be?' She said, 'Alive.' It made me think for a minute, then looked in her eyes ...I coulda died.

Whatever floats your boat...or finds your lost remote...

I'm a vegan, but I like to look good, too.

As a rapper, I don't freestyle. I used to freestyle when I used to get drunk, and it didn't matter.

I'm a thinker; I think too much. So for me to freestyle rap, it's like I'm thinking three, four time steps ahead, and I hate it.

I don't freestyle, but when I'm writing and thinking, sometimes things pop up - that's basically a freestyle.

I just try things. And the things I like, sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. You can look at pictures where I just look terrible. But the older I get, the more I know what works. It's for the better.

Those people online are analyzing everything both of you do. Andre, every new song you're on gets scrutinized.

With music, you can portray a certain thing, but in film, sometimes you have to let yourself go to a point where that can be attractive to a person, that you're willing to let yourself go that much. It works both ways.

Now, my oral illustration be like clitoral stimulation to the female gender Ain't nothin' better Let me know when it's wet enough to enter

When I'm shooting a film, I don't look at playback. I don't go and do a scene and then hurry up and watch what I just did. I never look at it so I haven't seen any of it.

I live by the beat like you live check to check. If you don't move your feet then I don't eat, So we like neck to neck.

As a rapper, your verses are like a window in to who you are.

Your white tee, well to me, looks like a nightgown; Make your mama proud, take that thing two sizes down.

I'm a fan of making things that I've seen but couldn't purchase, or things I bought that didn't fit the way I like.

What's cooler than being cool?

But I am a lover of all kinds of art. And I just can't stick to one thing. I guess I could if I made myself, but I'd always be looking the other way, for other things.

Sometimes your fans are way deeper than you are. They think you meant something like this big power-of-the-world thing that you said, but really you were just trying to find a word to rhyme with another word.

A lot of people think that you easily get roles because you do music. I mean, you could knock on the door faster than anybody, but it doesn't necessarily get you in...

Nothing's more attractive than a heavy praying woman,