I'm a product of the different - whether it be institutional racialism, whether it might be growing up in a low-income area, whether it might be, you know, coming from my mother, my father. I'm a totally different person from my mother and father, but once again I'm from them. We all have our different souls, but I'm from them.

My perspective of capitalism growing up in Berkeley, Calif. in a low-income project, growing up poor, is that capitalism wanted to destroy me, they wanted me to become a worker.

Growing up low income and poor, I didn't have the best relationship with money.

When I was growing up, man, I didn't know myself. I was striving for respect. Trying to be cool for the girls. I wasn't the biggest dude and I'm a nice guy.

Country music, the music of the white rural working class, has often been mocked by elitists whose understanding of power and art was shaped at expensive private schools.

I think the benefit of being a writer is that I'm looking for the subtext on the page, because all good writing has subtext. And as a writer, you look at the big scope of things, the big story, rather than just your individual story line, because I think it's important to know what you're in and how you fit into it.

My two favorite parts of what I do are definitely writing the music and then writing and directing the videos to support each song. As well as doing my own makeup and styling for the videos.

I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.