2010 Foursquare Mayor Of The Year

There's certainly a lot of noise in the hip-hop world now [that] I don't pay active attention to, but to the extent that I represent some flavor of what's happening in hip-hop - it's subconscious.

As I've submerged myself in news of the revolutions sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, I wanted desperately to feel part of what was going on. And then it hit me: This is what white people were doing to me after Obama was elected!

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.

2010 Foursquare Mayor Of The Year

When I look at what I'm doing today, I see [the] roots in my college life. I was the online editor of my college paper and an active member of the Harvard Computer Society. I abandoned a summer internship at the Washington Post due to injury and instead did theatre. I found my comedic voice through satirical newsletters in college.

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.