Amanda Seales

Smart Funny and Black' is basically a live black pop culture game show that I created. We have a live band. We have two contestants that we call 'blacksperts.' They come on stage and compete in games that I've created that test their knowledge of black culture, black history, and the black experience. ”

My mother is black, from Grenada, so my blackness was always there, but It wasn't until I started hanging with the upperclassmen black actors at my high school that I really got my roots in being a black American, which is a distinctly different identity and experience. ”

As a black woman, the government is so much in my life, and it always has been. ”

I've been grinding a really long time, and I've been broke for a lot of years. I may not have looked like it because, if you're fly, you don't need a dollar - you just need charisma. But I was riding hope as currency for a very long time. I feel like now, more than ever, I'm in my purpose, and comedy is the foundation of that. ”

I was in the music industry as Amanda Diva for 10 years but I realized that I had bigger work to do and needed to get busy doing that work. I really do believe that I'm here for a bigger purpose, and I want to be a role model and speak for the black community and black women specifically. Humor was the way it felt most organic and effective for me. ”

I think it's always been especially hard for black people to let go of musicians who do heinous things because music is such an integral part of our existence. ”

My thing about creating things is that it has to do two purposes: It has to serve me creatively but also has to serve the people. ”

If I couldn't get to where I wanted to by being my organic self - which is a smart, funny, unapologetically black woman - then I felt like it's not worth doing it if I can't do it the most organic way possible. Which is why I left the music business. ”

I paint because I love to paint. If someone buys the prints or whatever, so be it, but it's not my main form of business. As a performer, that is my main form of business. ”

I've made it my business to condition and train folks to understand that you'll never know what's going to come out of my mouth. ”