This is a country that I love and that I believe in, but at the same time also believe that you should, as a part of this country, have the right to be able to talk very clearly about the issues that are happening, going on.
If there's one thing that I've learned from both Spike Lee and Tarantino, it's that you can wear your influences on your sleeve but at the same time invoke new energy and new flavor.
I will always get a certain thrill of watching bullets bounce off Luke Cage.
Bob Marley was always ready to deal with the politics of what was happening in the world but, at the same time, not lose sight of the fact that he's a musician.
When you're dealing with African Americans, family is everything. Because we spend so much time talking about how one treats one's family. Telling a black person that you haven't talked to your mother in a week is probably different than it is with other races because people will look at you different.
When I was a journalist, I didn't care how many people talked to Ice Cube before I talked Ice Cube. I just knew that when I talked to Ice Cube, it was going to be different than what anybody else had done, and it was the same with any group.
I wanted Season 2 of Luke Cage to be Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate,' or Fugees' 'The Score,' or Public Enemy's 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,' or my favorite, 'The Low End Theory' by A Tribe Called Quest.
My private joke about 'Luke Cage' is that it's a bulletproof version of 'Lemonade,' and that, essentially, it's a concept album that has a video component.
I always respected Luke Cage and thought that he was interesting, and I really liked what Brian Michael Bendis did in his update of the character in 'Alias,' the comic.
The only thing that's different about doing a superhero show is that you can have your hero do things that a normal cop in a procedural can't do. But the structure of the storytelling is universal.
Rosario Dawson is such a resourceful, intelligent actress that you can do anything with her.
In reality, black women, women of color, are powerful, bold, dynamic, and self-assured, so there's no reason their TV counterparts shouldn't be as such.
I don't see female characters as different or inferior to male characters.
Black women are the most passionate commentators, and even as black female geeks and nerds, they are rarely acknowledged.
Bushmaster was such a great adversary, and Mustafa Shakir, just the way that he embodies him in terms of the power of the voice, the stillness, and then, at the same time, when they do get after it, when he does fight, just how kinetic he was. He just brought a great dynamic and being able to explore his history in making the character Jamaican.
'Clockers' - as much as it is a very focused crime drama, it sprawls.
The thing about Luke Cage that makes him different is - on the surface is he's a hero for hire; Luke Cage wants to get paid. Luke Cage in the comic books is like, 'I'm doing this stuff. It's all well and good, but I gotta make a dollar.'
Muhammed Ali is my favorite boxer, and the reason that I love Ali is because he's not undefeated. It's because of the fact that he risked it all at times and lost - but then came back.
There aren't a lot of African-American superheroes. I've been reading comics since I was eight or nine years old. Luke Cage stood out.
I'm not ashamed of comic books. You have some people that are like, 'We're trying to elevate comic books.' Comic books have always told great dramatic stories.
