My theatrical background was in the great work of the South African playwright Athol Fugard.

You have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality.

New Orleans is a city whose basic industry is the service industry. That's why it makes its money. That's - it brings people to the city. People come to the city and experience the wonders of this extraordinary city and everything else. The question is that, how do we create jobs which are the jobs that have pay, that - living wages?

Every day of my life I walk with the idea I am black no matter how successful I am.

Remember, we're talking [in The Black Power Mixtape] about 1967, the year before [Martin Luther] King's assassination. We're talking about the emergence of black power, which is a discussion King mentioned in his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? We're talking about the meaning of black power and the possibility that it alienated our supporters, both white and black.

Art is about the dynamics of the human experience.

President [Barack] Obama is a man who had certain advantages because of the civil rights movement.