From a technological standpoint, we're further than I thought we would be. The only thing I think we're missing is the flying cars. As far as racism goes, we're in a weird place. Music is weird, too. Think about when the electric guitar was invented — what music was formed from that? Or how the electric keyboard created new forms of music, like jazz fusion and funk. Take, for example, the bass, the electric bass and the freaking wah-wah and how that formed funk and jazz and rock and blues and the harmonica. And here we are with the most technology in human history walking on the fucking planet humming and singing, and there's no form of music formed, and I'm talking to you in Brazil on a cell phone at lightning speed. I've got the Internet pumping right now, and there ain't no form of music in 2007? That's fuckin' crazy.

You produced Nas' "Hip Hop Is Dead." Do you think hip-hop is dead in 2007?

Hip-hop's not dead, but people have forgotten the different forms of hip-hop, the different styles of hip-hop music. They only think one form of hip-hop is alive.

Is that going to change? What's going to happen as we go forward?

Hip-hop will be called something else, but it will be hip-hop.

Do you think the lines between genres will blur more? Will people think less in terms of that?

I think in the next couple of decades, people aren't going to care what the title of a form of music is. They're just going to have playlists, and they're going to listen to whatever the hell they want to listen to it. People just want to get what they want to get when they want to get it. Those titles, those genres, only came about in yesterday's world when things were all segregated. As much as racism still exists today, people don't care. There's no racism amongst people. There's racism amongst corporations and what corporations think people want to buy.