I worked with Ice-T, Ice Cube, and Tupac! But Tupac was the sweetest man in the world. That whole thug thing was an act - it was silly and dumb. He was a complete gentleman and one of the kindest men I've ever met.

I'm not motivated by money or fame. I'm more driven by the electricity of creativity. The idea of being one of the legends that inspired me, being like Tupac.

Believe or not, love me or hate me, YoungBoy is Tupac, man.

I have no secrets. Neither did Tupac, neither does my daughter. We don't live behind secrets, we don't live lies, we are who we are, and we are pretty happy to be who we are.

One day, I'll be listening to a bunch of Ray Charles, the next day it's nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next day it might be Tupac all day.

Everybody has the Tupac that they admire. Certain people love the hip-hop person, the rapper. Strictly just the rapper. A lot of people, the newfound Tupac fans... they're into Death Row-era Tupac. But that was only nine months!

My dad's Nigerian, and I remember going to Nigeria, and all of these kids and adults and everyone in-between knew who TuPac was. They had TuPac t-shirts, TuPac posters, TuPac cassettes... everyone knew TuPac, and sometimes that was the only English that they spoke, was TuPac lyrics.

I've always been a huge Tupac fan, and I often listen to him for inspiration or when I'm stuck.

My mom had a produce business in in Oxnard, and we used to take these long trips to talk to farmers and different distributors. She'd take us with her after picking us up from school, and she'd be blasting all this old soul music and R&B. I knew all those O'Jays songs before I knew Snoop or Dre or Tupac.

I have a lot of friends who are in love the '90s. Girls, boys. '90s music? That's Tupac. That's Biggie. That's TLC. That's Aaliyah. I still listen to Aaliyah. I still listen to Tupac and Biggie. There's people who are really heavy on that culture.

When I was 10 years old my mom used to play Tupac while she cleaned the house.

I loved B.I.G., but not like I liked Tupac, because he was an actor, so I related to him.

Tupac was actually pro-choice, which is fantastic. Of course, those moments in rap are few and far between.

They use all of the music that I did in the '50s, '60s and the '70s behind people like Tupac and LL Cool J. I'm into all that stuff.

I'm better than Tupac and Biggie. I say that so now you know where my head at.

With Biggie, I thought his flow and his swag was better than Tupac's, but I thought Tupac's passion and ability to relate to the average person was better than Biggie, and I thought Nas was kind of like both, with a lot substance going but a lot of swag.

As I got older, I really got into Tupac's poetry, his books and just learning about his life and what he was into.

I was a super-duper Tupac fan, and I realized later, when I became a huge Nas fan and a huge Eminem fan, I was drawn to the storytellers. They all told stories in different ways, but they were all like the best storytellers.

I think my music's more disturbing than Tupac's - or at least I thought some of the themes of 'The Downward Spiral' were more disturbing on a deeper level - you know, issues about suicide and hating yourself and God and people and everything else.

A lot of people say I tried to emulate Tupac, but when I look back at my career, we're very different artists. I took pages out of Pac's book, of course, and lots of other rappers - Biggie, Nas - of course you take pages out of those books, but you eventually make it your own thing. And I think I did a good job of that.