In chess, you gotta come up with a strategy. I made a lot of plans in my life. 'I'ma do this, I'ma do that, this is gonna happen, that's gonna happen.' And a lot of stuff don't go as planned. You really gotta act on events as they unfold. That's how I compare chess to life.

I am going to make singles with other artists and put those out there - I'd love to work with Bruno Mars, Drake, Kendrick Lamar. But when somebody buys a Tee Grizzley album, all they're going to hear is Tee Grizzley.

God just kept me on the right path. I never smoked, drank, none of that.

I realized that I got problems bigger than anything that can happen in prison. So I started reading books, talking to people who had a head on their shoulders, sold my TV and just got a whole bunch of books.

Getting off parole is like walking out them cells all over again. There was a lot of stuff I couldn't do when I was on parole. I had a curfew, couldn't go to certain cities, couldn't be around certain people, and you miss out on a lot of opportunities.