When I'm on stage, I get real happy there. Maybe that's the only time in my adult life I feel like myself.

Every black American is bilingual. All of them. We speak street vernacular and we speak 'job interview.'

I don't really frick with Africa cause people are starving to death and that's not ballin' to me.

I would go to work on the show and I felt awful every day, that's not the way it was. ... I felt like some kind of prostitute or something. If I feel so bad, why keep on showing up to this place? I'm going to Africa. The hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself, especially when everybody is watching.

Things like racism are institutionalized. You might not know any bigots. You feel like "well I don't hate black people so I'm not a racist," but you benefit from racism. Just by the merit, the color of your skin. The opportunities that you have, you're privileged in ways that you might not even realize because you haven't been deprived of certain things. We need to talk about these things in order for them to change.

Once you been performing on the streets you can conquer any venue.

I love being famous - it's phenomenal.