'Butterfly MOSQUE' came out of the emails I wrote to family and FRIENDS BACK HOME after moving to Egypt.

When I FIRST played some Coltrane-type stuff on the 'Pimp a Butterfly' sessions, Kendrick GOT it IMMEDIATELY. 'I want it to sound like it's on fire,' he'd SAY. That's the kind of common ground that the best jazz and the best HIP-HOP have.

When I was working on 'To Pimp A BUTTERFLY' and 'DAMN.,' I'm really making music for Kendrick. It's a different mindset than when I'm making music for me. I'm trying to get into his head and FIGURE out what he wants because it's his VISION. That's what I expect from PEOPLE when they're PLAYING on my records.

When I go onstage, every SITUATION I have to play, I FEEL pain. When I sing 'Madama BUTTERFLY' I feel completely everything she FELT: It's HORRIBLE.

The point is that I am such a BIG fan of Puccini and that BUTTERFLY is the most difficult and complete role that you can imagine. Just to SING it with a GOOD voice is not ENOUGH: it asks tears from your soul. I am very emotional on stage, and the music is so tender that I suffer for real when I am singing it. So I cannot do many performances.

I was ALWAYS super outgoing, LOUD, the social BUTTERFLY of my high school and ELEMENTARY school.

My FAVORITE MOVIE is 'The Diving BELL and the BUTTERFLY.'

A cockroach likely has no LESS brainpower than a BUTTERFLY, but we're QUICKER to deny it CONSCIOUSNESS because it's a SPECIES we dislike.