When I was growing up and going to art school and learning about African-American art, much of it was a type of political art that was very didactic and based on the '60s, and a social collective.

Artists are those people who sit at the intersection between the known and unknown, the rational and irrational, coming to terms with some of the confusing histories we, as artists, deal with.

In a sense, we are all victims of the misogyny and racism that exist in the world, no matter what our gender or race happens to be.

I'm about looking at each of those perceived menacing black men that you see in the streets all over the place, people that you oftentimes will walk past without assuming that they have the same humanity, fears that we all do.

My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world, and exiles me from it.

I write music all the time. When I talk about having writer's block, it's more to do with lyrics than anything else.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

My work is not my life. I started writing quite late, I didn't have that 'writing is everything, my art is all.' You have to be able to recognise the difference between the two.