Traffic is about drugs. As detailed a portrait as I can muster about what is happening in the drug world, from top to bottom, from policy to how things move on the street.
I don't have any kind of ideology that precludes me from moving in one direction or another. I just want creative autonomy and I want at least an opportunity that it's going to be seen.
Surprisingly, I don't throw away that much. I don't move forward with a lot of things unless they're going somewhere. You also have to remember that when you're working with other artists, you have to be really careful about how you deal with that stuff.
I come from a generation that was surrounded by popular music, but I don't know if anybody's ever going to move the ball forward as far and as fast as the Beatles did.
Whenever you experiment with something, it's very easy to take the emotion out of it. And going back and forth between wanting to be respected artistically and wanting to move people is its own challenge.