When I was younger, I would see shea butter being sold on the street, and I was interested how people were still coating themselves in the theater of Africanism. You see that in dashikis and hairstyles and music.

I've been interested in LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka's work for quite a while. My first introduction to LeRoi Jones was when my mother used to read me the 'Dead Lecturer' poems when I was a kid.

People intoxicate themselves with work so they won't see how they really are.

From day one, musical theater was my bread and butter.

When I opened Magic Johnson's theater on 125th Street, a lot of people said it wouldn't fly, but we proved them wrong, ... I love New York_ and I like what Mike Bloomberg is about. He gets things done for every neighborhood.

When I see people on the street, I look at how they walk. It's like a signature, a fingerprint.