Most actors have to sit by the phone and wait for somebody to call them up to audition and stuff. I don't think I can exist in Hollywood just on that. I think I need to be proactive and making sure that things I really want to do are being developed to the point where somebody wants to make them?

I believe our society has fell into a pyramid system where there's people relegated to the bottom of that pyramid and there's people that feel like they're entitled to the top of that pyramid.

If you really think back to the culture or just black America before rap music took off, New York could have been Paris.

"Are We There Yet?" was the perfect title, because it's such a common saying. And having made the movie with the same name kinda locks it all in.

Music is where I have the most creative freedom, but I love producing. To me, that's kind of where all the action is. You get a chance to have your hands in every aspect of a film. From picking a director, sometimes picking a writer, to the actors, the wardrobe, set design, editing, music, and marketing.

I'm not actually from Compton - I'm from South Central Los Angeles, and my father still lives in the same house I grew up in, so I'm there all the time.

As far as producing, once we started shooting, I soon realized where the critical decisions about the movies were really being made, and it wasn't on the set. They were being made in the production meetings. That's where producing a movie happens. And that's where I wanted to be. I didn't just want to be a piece, a pawn being played. I wanted to take part in the creative process, and that's how I sort of got introduced to the idea.