New York has been the best gift, in that the city pushes me to so many next levels.

My family life and early political life - being exposed to the news constantly, being enrolled in an Afrocentric education program, and doing the extracurriculars I did - played a huge role in me finding my path.

There are so many ways to be and to be black at the same time, but we're finally seeing that full range expressed much more widely than before.

I work in comedy, journalism, media, and technology, many of which don't have a lot of black faces in visible positions. I walk through Brooklyn with a surfboard. It's fun to challenge and expand people's expectations.

By the time I got to Harvard, I feel like I knew who I was, and my job there was to throw as much against the wall as possible, to see what would stick.

2010 Foursquare Mayor Of The Year

New York has been the best gift, in that the city pushes me to so many next levels.