I figure if you have one person that loves you, that's enough, growing up. You just need one person in your corner.

The narrative oftentimes is that everything that comes out of the hood is 'real,' and so I thought, 'I'll base it on the absurd, the not real. I'll twist the idea of real on its head and see if I can get away with it. I'll make paintings that come not from a place but through an abstract gaze.'

The police pull up in back of my car and run my plates - they don't see you as you are; they see you through a racialized negative gaze. I think the best thing is not to internalize it too much, or it'll make you crazy because you know it's going to happen again.

When you're as tall as I am, you have no public privacy. People are constantly coming up and talking to you. Constantly. You have one of two ways to go: you engage with people, or you become really bitter. I choose to engage.