The Altered Realm

If you just really looking for the mainstream to deliver your hip-hop all you going to see is pop-hop, which is cool. It works for certain people and the radio loves it and obviously somebody is listening to it because it keeps going back to it. But you got to be a real hip-hop fan nowadays. You got to dig deep. You got to really go search for the great and the good people if you’re really digging that deep. So, if you’re a surface dweller as far as hip-hop, you’re going to just get all the stuff that they want to feed you. It’s a treasure hunt right now.

—Ice Cube on the current state of hip-hop.