Growing up in New York City—and specifically in Manhattan—has completely, tremendously informed myself as a person and also everything musical that has come forth from me and everything that my band [Beastie Boys] has done.

What still inspires me to continue to live here is the fact that even as much as New York has changed—and there's a Starbucks on every corner and it's so expensive to live in Manhattan and all these things that are different from when I grew up here—the bottom line is that when you walk down the street or get in a cab or you're on the subway, you're still amongst humanity. It's not segregated the way many American cities are.

Message-wise, unfortunately, hip-hop is devoid, at this moment, of any prominent, popular or radical spokespersons. To me, the things that appear in hip-hop today, unfortunately, are not radical. The things that the media blow up as being radical—whether it's homophobia or sexism or acquiring material possessions—in our society, I hate to break the news to people, but there's nothing radical about any of those things.

Those things have been going on in a very mainstream way for a very, very long time here. What's far more radical is to actually get beyond those entrapments as a society. Who knows? Maybe in this next decade we'll see decent people who rise to the forefront and change some things.

REPORTED BY ALEX SMITH