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" College was the first time I felt I really had to choose who my friends were. "

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" Oftentimes, it feels like we spend so much of our life waiting to make art, waiting for somebody to let us do something. You don't really have to do that. You can make it all the time. And 99 percent of the time, it's not going to be a big deal on a global scale. But 100 percent of the time, it's going to make you feel amazing. "

" I didn't know a single musical soundtrack, really, growing up. Nobody listened to musicals. That wasn't a thing I did. "

" All the way on the West Coast, never having seen a Broadway show, it was like, 'They don't want me. There's nothing there for me.' I'd come to New York a lot and never even tried to see a Broadway show. There was no reason for me to do that. "

" The reason you write something that is exciting and visceral is to force people to hear what you have to say, especially if you're in any kind of marginalized community where people don't want to listen. You have to come up with tricks to make them listen. "

" I think this idea of a big break is a lie. "

" My favorite Prince album is 'Sign o' the Times.' "

" I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion. "

" I was really aware, even while it was happening, that the discovery of arts education in my life sort of saved my life. "

" I liked being on stage because it gave me a reason to be around people. The other great thing about acting is it allows you to imagine circumstances different from your own. I was a poor Bay Area kid getting to pretend to be a Russian aristocrat. "

" Writing is writing. It is all about telling stories, and I've been doing that for so long, in all realms, that it all feels like the same thing to me anyway. "

" There's this thing about authenticity when you rap, right? Whether or not it's real, it has to feel real. "

" The fact that rap has a strict meter and stays to a click means that you have to make your thoughts concise. "

" It wasn't until I got out in the world and started worked professionally when I realized that the people I admired were the ones who had taken the little snippets of what they learned that worked for them - and strung them together in their own technique. "

" That's what hip-hop is - it's about meeting the music where you are, and then you add on top of that. It's about coming at it with your full self. "

" I make the energy to go out. You can't let the Broadway schedule run you. "

" To walk into a casting room full of people who look like you is a crazy thing. What is the thing that necessitates all of us having the exact same shade of skin and having the same hair? What about this deodorant commercial needs that? "

" I'm aware that not everybody gets that feeling of ease walking through the world that I have. "

" Acting is about finding truth and finding the way to convey the truth. "

" There's no reason for somebody who's good at writing rap to be good at freestyling. They're different parts of your brain. You can develop both skills. I'm a much better writer. "

" I miss doing a straight play. "

" I have all of Kendrick Lamar on vinyl. "

" Typically, my advice to young artists is not to wait for someone to allow you to do the thing. Just do the thing, and they'll catch up. "

" The tricky thing about fast raps is not really the delivery of them; it's the writing of them, with consonants close enough together that you don't trip up over them. "

" Learning how to get a point across is pretty useful in any situation. "

" Writing rap songs is about flow, about one word blending seamlessly into the next and creating a thing that is possible to perform in a way that feels natural. "

" Neither of my parents live in Oakland anymore. They both got priced out. "

" Clipping is a very specific, concept-y thing. We have all these rules: we don't sample drums. We create all our own sounds. I don't speak in the first person. We come from a background of experimental music like John Cage... Philip Glass. "

" History is about who tells it. "

" I think rappers spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is new. 'How can I say this in a way that no one has ever said it before?' "

" I've been sort of gentrification-obsessed. Right before I left Oakland in 2012, I was feeling it. Now I go back sporadically, and the change is drastic. "