I’ve always been impressed with hip hop lyrics, in just how many there are per line, and the creativity involved. Do you feel the same way?

Honestly, hip-hop and old country music is really not all that different. They’re storytellers just talking about a different story. But, hip-hop is important. I’ve done some things in the hip-hop world, written a couple things for a couple people, and I remember talking to Notorious B.I.G., before he died, and him going, “You know, I learned the art of story telling from my mother listening to Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard.” His mother is from Jamaica, and in Jamaica they only have a reggae station and a country station. His mom liked that stuff, so she only had those records. He goes, “I would listen to these dudes: Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard, and they told stories.”

You take some of the guys, lyrically, like Tupac, Biggie, Jay-Z, and Eminem and those dudes are un-freaking-believable. Listen to the words they are putting together, lyrically and sonically what they’re doing. It’s phenomenal. I’ve sat there and watched Jay-Z sit down and write 16 bar verses and never write anything down. He’ll have it all in his head, then go into the studio and lay it down. That’s bada**. I don’t care who you are. You write songs, and you don’t appreciate that, then you don’t know shit. [laughs] You don’t know anything about writing a song if you can’t appreciate what that’s like while looking at the lyrical content. For me, I’m doing five, six, seven words for their singing one. A lot of my artist friends are like, “How do you remember all that stuff?” I say, “Sometimes I don’t.” That’s what makes real music and live music fun! Sometimes you mess up. That’s okay. That’s music.

Lloyd excitedly shared a coincidental fact about an inspiring moment. "My very first concert was a Diddy show in Atlanta," he said, smiling. "Puff came out and he just rocked it, man. I had never experienced anything like that."

Now Lloyd performs on the same stage as the star he admired so much as a kid. "Diddy's one of the first people to take hip-hop to a popular music standpoint," Lloyd noted. "He's the godfather of hip-hop!"