I write to music, and Nina Simone is always on my playlist to write to. I mean, shes inspiring. She's truthful and real and raw.

People often ask me if I feel discriminated against as a black female director. I don't. I'm actually offered a ton of stuff. But I only want to direct what I write. And I prefer to focus on black female characters. What's most important to me is to put characters up onscreen who are not perfect, but who are human and flawed.

In film school, I knew I wanted to be a director, but I found out pretty damn quickly that nobody was just going to hand me a script to direct.

A classic is a classic for a reason. Let's try to create new classics. The idea of repeating ourselves drives me a little crazy.

Be passionate about your [movie] material, because you're going to have to overcome a lot of "No's," and it's that passion that fuels the fight.

I thought that the R&B / Hip-Hop world really hasn't been explored on film and there's some issues that we're going through right now. It's in a very dangerous place , for women especially, both in terms of the songs that men are singing about. You know, R&B used to be a safe place for women and now it just seems like the songs coming out are so angry but also what women have to come out with. You have to get noticed. You see, it's like a script to follow. You come out hyper sexualized but what happens when you can't pull back from that. That's not authentic to yourself.

I write to music, and Nina Simone is always on my playlist to write to. I mean, shes inspiring. She's truthful and real and raw.