Sometimes, when you grow up in one of these poverty-stricken neighborhoods where the educational system isn't the best, you don't realize that you have any choices. Often, kids don't appreciate the choices available, as if it's either the street or nothing. I want them to understand that reality is what's relative to you, and that you can make choices that allow you to create a new reality for yourself.

I think we have to be accepting of one another, and we have to appreciate what every culture has given us and name that and accept that and empower and encourage that. I really think that's what it comes down to. The images won't change until we make them change.

We need to stop separating ourselves by how dark or how light we are.

If there's a certain song that I want to reach a certain person or certain type of person, that's when I play it for people.

I feel like I've reached a point where music has become just as much a priority to me as my acting, and I'm glad to feel that way.

We have African-Americans and black people getting behind the scenes more and more, we get true black images in television and film...because we have black people behind them. They can tell stories from those points of view and bring to life those characters who have yet to be shown. As long as we have people behind the camera just as much as in front of the camera doing the work, then we'll always be good.

Sometimes, when you grow up in one of these poverty-stricken neighborhoods where the educational system isn't the best, you don't realize that you have any choices. Often, kids don't appreciate the choices available, as if it's either the street or nothing. I want them to understand that reality is what's relative to you, and that you can make choices that allow you to create a new reality for yourself.