As a young, Black man, I absolutely feel responsible.

I feel like the stillness of Ralph Angel - him being formerly incarcerated, being a Black man, being misunderstood in this world, I felt like that brought him to a place where he thought he had to be an observer - externally and internally.

Louisiana taught me another level of humility. Everyone is so content, not socially content but spiritually. Everyone is happy with who they are and loves their city regardless of what has happened here with Katrina and all the different stories. They have a sense of pride and it really rubbed off on me.

I feel responsible to know what I'm talking about and to actually express myself the way I choose. We have to put those messages on a global platform period. That, to me, is inspiring.

Everyone has a platform, so if we could just use that and combine what we have and know -we talk about it in private - we might as well talk about it [publicly] together.

As a young, Black man, I absolutely feel responsible.

Ralph Angel, for me, was about getting in touch with the similarities between the characters. I felt like he was a human being that I knew and [somebody] that I've been and am currently still exploring.