I just wanted to let people know that, in any aspect in which you're getting' money, you've gotta go overtime in order to provide for your loved ones or those who are around you. So that was my state of mind.
Not only my favorite producers, but those are actually brothers, they're part of our We The Best family. To me, they're the biggest guys out, and the music they produce and the records they put out are phenomenal records.
Even though I'm out there as an artist, I continue droppin' mixtapes, I continue doin' this and continue showin' DJs love personally. That's why I continue doin' a lot of things other artists don't do.
I've always believed in self, I've always believed that as long as I believe, nothing else matters. I just put that type of motivation and that type of energy into my music, and I've always had confidence in my music as well.
Through my life, [there have been] a lot of devils and a lot of situations, so I'm just goin' hard, maintaining, regardless of what people got to say about Ace Hood.
I could go old-school; I listen to a lot of old-school music, like Teddy Pendergrass, the Temptations, people like that. I'm an old-school dude, and I'm vibin' with stuff like that to clear my mind. I like listening to that old-school music.
We're gonna keep on doin' what we're doin', and we're gonna get it by all means. That's just what "ruthless" means to me. Everybody's got their own definition, but I'm ruthless with this music.
I wanted people to feel me as a person. I do this music for the people, man, so at the end of the day I feel like, [given] our state of mind and the state our economy is in, I felt like we needed motivation for the type of situation we're in nowadays.
Stay focused. You gotta believe in yourself. I think that's the biggest thing I've been able to do throughout my whole career, even before I actually had a big career in this industry.