The way you speak should not determine your intelligence. I should be able to say 'lit,' and you still know I'm intelligent. I should be able to say 'turn up,' and that doesn't take away from my intelligence. I wanted to break down that stereotype a little bit.

At the time when I was in college, Oscar Grant had just lost his life in Oakland, Calif. He was an unarmed young black male who had a record. And at the time when his death was making headlines, more people were talking about what he had done in his past than the fact that he unjustly lost his life.

At 7, I was shooting 3s with so much ease that the guys at the neighborhood park were impressed. Michael Jordan was one of the best humans to walk the earth in my eyes, third only to Jesus and my mother.

Especially for young POC, when we enter majority-white spaces, we feel the need to assimilate, to blend in, to prove ourselves. I don't think we discuss it enough.

To put it simply, I’m not interested in making comfortable films, and I don’t want to crush the audience’s imagination. I want them to feel like they might have missed something."

I love what Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh and Jesus all said - that love is really the driving principle of the creative act. In fact, they would say that great art is always inspired by love.

The new age of terrorism isn't on the battlefield: it's in your own backyard. Whether it's at a concert in France or a restaurant in the United States, terrorism doesn't have to happen in a military installation by any stretch of the imagination.

Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless.