When I was a kid, there was kind of a given that there were some really bad, racist police out there. That's just what America was like when I was a kid.

I started as a standup comic and an actor.

A lot of science started off as magic, where people were burned at the stake for doing science basically.

The Oscar nominations are out, and they're so white a grand jury has decided not to indict them.

There always seemed to be a place for God and, to me, it seemed like God was a place in the unknown side of the ledger.

When I was a kid, I was very much interested in magic and science. They fueled interest in one another.

Hollywood wanted a certain type of comic - that Def Jam comedy style of comic that was very loud, very brash, very much from the ghetto, had that sensibility.