While at the annual eMerge Americas tech conference in Miami Beach in April, Pitbull sat down with CNBC to reveal his most important lesson about money.

“Miami was the cocaine capital and what was going on around me I was 5, 6 years old, that’s when your mind is a sponge,” said Armando. “I seen what it did — you either in prison, dead or snitchin’, so you might as well be a dead man walking.”

The 37-year-old rapper explains that he never weeped over his struggles, as he says his music career would’ve never took off if it wasn’t for his childhood situation.

“I always say that an oppressed mind is a creative mind, because when you have nothing you figure out how to make something, right?”

Watch his full interview above!