Daveed Diggs
Learning how to get a point across is pretty useful in any situation.Collection: Learning
If a project feels good to you, say yes. And do it with everything that you have and hope that the outcome is good.Collection: Hope
Oftentimes, it feels like we spend so much of our life waiting to make art, waiting for somebody to let us do something. You don't really have to do that. You can make it all the time. And 99 percent of the time, it's not going to be a big deal on a global scale. But 100 percent of the time, it's going to make you feel amazing.Collection: Amazing
Acting is about finding truth and finding the way to convey the truth.Collection: Truth
My mom is a white Jewish lady, and my dad is black. The cultures never seemed separate - I had a lot of mixed friends. When I was young, I identified with being Jewish, but I embraced my dad's side, too.Collection: Dad
I was really aware, even while it was happening, that the discovery of arts education in my life sort of saved my life.Collection: Education
TV is really about keeping things fresh and making sure you have the most energy possible for these very short spurts of time.
There's a lot of spaces that care about what kids are buying. There are a lot of spaces that care about what kids are watching. But there aren't a lot of spaces that care about what kids are saying.
Being on stage, I know my function. I just do the thing.
I love that 'Black-ish' is a pretty traditional sitcom, structurally. It functions like the sitcoms from the '80s and '90s that I grew up with.
Some people get a Broadway show, and that's their end game, and they want to sit there for as long as possible. And some people have other things they want to do with their life.
There's this thing about authenticity when you rap, right? Whether or not it's real, it has to feel real.
That's what hip-hop is - it's about meeting the music where you are, and then you add on top of that. It's about coming at it with your full self.
I warm up a lot harder for a Clipping show than I ever did for 'Hamilton.'
I miss doing a straight play.
I call myself a nerd all the time.
Everybody from the Bay has a superiority complex because we're dope.
Hip-hop was indifferent to Broadway. We didn't need Broadway, but I think Broadway needed hip-hop.
I get to say 'no' to a lot of things. That, for an artist, is crazy.
I didn't know a single musical soundtrack, really, growing up. Nobody listened to musicals. That wasn't a thing I did.
All the way on the West Coast, never having seen a Broadway show, it was like, 'They don't want me. There's nothing there for me.' I'd come to New York a lot and never even tried to see a Broadway show. There was no reason for me to do that.
I've always been very supported. I've never really been sad. I've just been broke. They are very different things.
I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.
Using something that is really painful, generally, as the percussive element for a beat, I think is cool.
I'm an artist, so days don't start on any regular time.
History is about who tells it.
Broadway was weird.
I've always been a fan of 'Black-ish.'
What writing a poem really does - and what figuring how to perform effectively really does - is forces people to listen to you. It frames your thoughts in such a way that grabs people's attentions and forces them to hear the things that you're actually saying.
Typically, my advice to young artists is not to wait for someone to allow you to do the thing. Just do the thing, and they'll catch up.
Being an emcee onstage is mostly about crowd control, about monitoring energy levels.
The act of being nice to somebody at Starbucks is actually a huge thing. It's a real change you can effect in somebody's life every day.
I have a recognizable silhouette.
My favorite Prince album is 'Sign o' the Times.'
At some point, I'll do more McDonald's commercials if I have to.
As a kid, you don't have a ton of spaces where you are honored, where what you think is honored and what you say is revered.
I liked being on stage because it gave me a reason to be around people. The other great thing about acting is it allows you to imagine circumstances different from your own. I was a poor Bay Area kid getting to pretend to be a Russian aristocrat.
I was so stressed, man. When I was 17, I was so worried about what the hell was going to happen.
As a kid, I was very shy.
The way we make history exciting to learn about is by breaking down the barriers that are already set up between these people.
Clipping is a very specific, concept-y thing. We have all these rules: we don't sample drums. We create all our own sounds. I don't speak in the first person. We come from a background of experimental music like John Cage... Philip Glass.
Being with a bunch of people who never take a day off means that you're not taking a day off.
As more doors open for me, I try to always bring people who I know through.
I think it's important that your work is in conversation with artists in your community.
It wasn't until I got out in the world and started worked professionally when I realized that the people I admired were the ones who had taken the little snippets of what they learned that worked for them - and strung them together in their own technique.
I majored in theater. I did plays. But musicals were not my thing.
That's the great thing about how 'SVU' works. They work with so many Broadway actors, they are very used to getting us out in time for the show.
I think people understand I'm not actually the real Thomas Jefferson.
I get excited to create things that don't exist in the same world as 'Hamilton' because that world is really well done and doesn't need me to inform it anymore.
It's funny because as a rapper, there is - and this is something that Clipping challenges all the time - there is this idea about authenticity as a rapper, in the fact that you rap things that are yours. That's not what doing a play is. You're interpreting somebody else's words.