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Kanye West is keeping the legacy of his late mom, Donda West, alive through Loop Dreams, the South Central, Los Angeles-based inaugural program of The Kanye West Foundation, which educates children about hip-hop culture and teaches them studio engineering skills, among other things. On June 11, West will perform at a school benefit in his hometown of Chicago for 3,000 young fans as part of an effort to encourage kids to stay in school. ESSENCE.com talked to the rapper/superproducer about what his mom's death taught him about living, tackling America's alarming high school dropout rates, and his answer to critics who call him an egomaniac.

ESSENCE.COM: We love that, despite your decision to leave college, you continue to encourage young folk to stay the course and get their education. How do you scare them straight?
KANYE WEST: I'm not about fear. America instills enough of that with the cause of the war, the threat of the recession and everything else. I'm about making your own choices but giving inspiration. I went to college for a year and half and I didn't graduate. If I got a bachelor's degree or went to school for another eight years, would that mean I finished? At what point are you really done finishing your education? I believe that anything that you have to pay for is a choice, and high school is mandatory to gain some basic skills. Therefore, it's easy for me to build a foundation that encourages young people to stay in high school.

ESSENCE.COM: Makes sense. Loop Dreams encourages education through music and varying assets of the hip-hop culture, which often gets a bad rap (no pun intended). How does hip-hop influence the youth negatively and positively?
WEST: Hip-hop is a reflection of what's going on. It's a form of entertainment and it's not steering people any differently than a [violent] movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. As a brand, I'm not defined by hip-hop. It's just a tool that I choose to use. I could have been a poet but I chose the tool of hip-hop to get my message across because it was the loudest.

ESSENCE.COM: Congrats on your upcoming book, "Thank You and You're Welcome," which is a tome of your personal philosophies. What is one Kanye-ism that you live and die by?
WEST: "It's not about dying but about living with optimism" and "Get used to getting used, because if you can't be used then you're useless" are two of my favorites. Again, it's just my ideas on life and it's not presented in a traditional format but with graphics. We were working with an author but that person couldn't let go of his traditional training to present it as we saw fit to the point that we could no longer work together. When people can't understand someone who might be presenting new ideas and thoughts because it sounds too different from what they are used to, they see me as an egomaniac, rather than viewing it as a difference of opinion or way of thinking.