Resistance here doesn't mean revolution. It doesn't mean storming the barricades. Resistance means using art for the things that it does best, which is to create human portraits and communicate ideas and forge a climate where people of different races or classes are known to you because they make themselves known. In the simplest terms, art humanizes. It opens the circuit of empathy. And once that process happens, it's that much harder to think of people as part of a policy or a statistic. Art reverses the alienation that can creep into society.

I've always been a lover of hoodies. I'm a guy that travels a lot. I'm a guy that spends a lot of time on a cold air-conditioned tour bus. I'm a guy that likes to watch movies in peace. I'm a guy that likes to travel in the airport in peace.

I think all of this—The Roots and DJing included—was meant to prepare me for The Tonight Show.

Jay-Z is a dude that can give you a hundred 'Simpsons' quotes, like, 'What you know about the monorail?'

I was born at a very crucial time. I consider 1968 to be the Mason Dixon line between pre- and post-civil rights generation ideas, whereas a lot of people born before '68 they kind of went into that Moses mentality. Like, I'm not going to make it, you know, I don't have any hope.

Half the time, my job is basically to talk people off the ledge. It's more psychological than just me picking up some sticks and counting, "1, 2, 3, 4."

I do secret stand-up shows around New York. I announce and tweet this to nobody - I get onstage and I do a quick five minutes.