I feel like I've been successful after being done with the film is when I see it, if I'm embarrassed, if I'm slightly mortified, and if I feel super-vulnerable, I think I did something.

Music is the soundtrack of our lives, it's essential for our lives.

The storm came. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced. Now it is time for a sea of change.

This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning. It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.

When it comes to the president, we have to respect him, we have to protect him, and we have to correct him. And in my career, since he'd been on the national stage at least, I've had - I've always respected the president.

I still think in this country, and this might surprise you, the one thing that George Bush said as president that I do agree with, I love that phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Democrats, too often, take blacks for granted, and Republicans, too often, simply ignore black voters.