I want to give people jobs and put them on great shows. I want to create careers for people.

Because sometimes listening to something will connect to a feeling, it will allow you to emote subconsciously, and you don't even understand why you're in it.

There's still a place for marching for instance with the Black Lives Matter movement, we've seen the importance of causing a scene, being on the streets and making your demands and your voice heard.

My mom experienced racism. She was harassed by the KKK several times. And I experienced racism myself, growing up. In New Jersey, we had trash thrown on our lawn every day. And we had the lines to our Christmas lights cut three years in a row. We just stopped putting up Christmas lights after that. That's probably why I still don't put up any lights during the holidays.

People talk about Jim Crow as if it's dead. Jim Crow isn't gone. It's adjusted. Look at the disproportionate sentences meted out to blacks caught up in the criminal justice system. There's a problem when people profit from putting and keeping African Americans in prison. We need to do a better job as a nation understanding the real values the country's built upon in terms of fairness, equality and equal opportunity.

I remember my mom had a conversation with Sam Jackson about what she should do with our careers and what the next step should be; I was eight and my brother was nine. He said, "You need to get them on Broadway."

I enjoy being surprised.