I've got a nice collection of paintings - a Basquiat, a black-and-white Warhol that's like a Rorschach test, and I commissioned Takashi Murakami to do a ten-foot joint for me. It's almost like the explosion in Hiroshima with his famous skeleton head. There's a wall above my fireplace reserved for it.
Since I was a kid, I was listening to hip-hop.
I've been arrested many times for illegal high wire walking and illegal street performing.
I'll just walk around New York and watch people on the streets.
A lot of times, when people say hip-hop, they don't know what they're talking about. They just think of the rappers. When you talk about hip-hop, you're talking about the whole culture and movement. You have to take the whole culture for what it is.
I never called myself an urban artist, but that's what I was classed as, and I almost tried to live up to the name instead of who I really was.
I started off tagging stuff - I'm not meant to be having tea and biscuits with the prime minister.
I do quite like sightseeing. I like churches, museums, galleries and all that stuff. I love the smell of a church in Italy or the smell of an old greasy spoon somewhere. I like markets and little funny shops in the backstreets of Florence.
I'm here to inspire young people to be part of the most magnificent culture on earth: hip-hop.
There was no hip-hop before Afrika Bambaataa.
Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.
If you're trying to get to the underworld of Berlin, it's not suits and ties; it's rock and roll.
Hip-hop is a worldwide culture. We have permeated every urban environment.
Should graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that.
Hip-hop lasted and survived all these years that you have to give it credit. Even though it's not up to people's expectations anymore, its still here, and that's says a lot.
If I have open time, and I'm in Manhattan, I'll just walk to wherever I'm going, even if I could get there faster on the subway. I just love walking the streets of New York.
Hip-hop, at its best, is disruptive.
Hip-hop is bigger than the South; hip-hop is bigger than New York.
When I was a kid, hip-hop had that effect on me, it was escape and it showed me a different way of life.
I've seen a dude who had the Wu logo tatted on his face. I mean, his whole face was tatted, but the Wu was the biggest thing on his face. That is a statement, something that means a lot to us.
I'm interested in youth culture and popular culture.
I've been through all the bad parts of the streets.
What's skateable is limitless by design.
Hip-hop belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's one of the most radical, revolutionary and reactionary music there is.
Most people think I do street art, so I do everything for nothing. I'm an urchin who paints walls and does work for nothing. That's the first misconception about street artists, that we just paint for nothing.
