My mother wouldn't allow me to speak slang when I was growing up. But when I got outside, around my friends, it was 'Yo' and 'That's the joint' and 'Yo, what's up?' So I had my game for my friends and my game for my mom.

The good thing about movies is that they're subjective. You can connect to different themes depending on your own perspective.

Beauty is not just a white girl. It's so many different flavors and shades.

Life is so much bigger, grander, higher, and wider than we allow ourselves to think.

My mom was my main influence growing up, and Phylicia Rashad reminded me a lot of my mother, just the way she handled certain things, she was... not soft-spoken but smooth-spoken. Just very calm, cool, collected about things.

Hip-hop definitely taught me a lot. Having to create your own identity and become known and respected in a male-dominated field - it requires some guts. There are times you have to be strong, and times when you have to stand alone for what you believe in.

I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female.