Rob James-Collier

Well, biology today as I see it has an amiable look - quite different from the 19th-century view that the whole arrangement of nature is hostile, 'red in tooth and claw.' That came about because people misread Darwin's 'survival of the fittest.'

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?

Everybody's always asking me about my blood pressure. They did an interview once where they hooked me up to a blood pressure machine and they'd rile me. I'd yell and scream, and then it would just go back to normal in a few minutes. Everything else is probably rotting, but the blood pressure is spectacular.