Obviously, we all look at things through the filter of our own experiences.
I have two main bass guitars, and my main bass is a four-string 1964 Fender Jazz, and I've named it Justine.
I've always been a poet. My dad went to Lincoln University with Gil-Scott Heron, so I came out of the womb listening to Gil-Scott Heron.
There's something very surreal about driving a truck, looking in the rearview mirror, and seeing 20 cop cars behind you. Even though you know, 'We're just shooting. This is just a scene; we're making a movie here,' it's very unsettling.
I've met men who have been married 19, 20 years, and all of a sudden the wife decides one day she needs to find herself.
I used to say that it won't be until I'm 40, 50, 60 years old, still working consistently, will I be able to look back on my career and say, 'Wow, I have been successful.'
Our differences - in race, sexual preference, economic - have always been used as distractions to keep us divided. We get so wrapped up in our own stories that we can't hear each other.
My band, Miles Long, is a jazz-funk spoken word band. There's jazz sensibilities, but I'm a bass player, so I'm very much into the head-bobbing vibe with sophisticated lyrics.
Acting had been a hobby that turned into a career, the directing was a hobby that turned into a career and music just really allowed me to find another way to express myself.
I never wanted to look back on my career and be embarrassed about work that I chose to do.
But there's a huge blessing that comes from being a part of a show like 'The Cosby Show' that sets such a high standard of quality - it touched so many people on so many different levels.
My perspective was always being on a number one show doesn't mean anything if I'm not still working consistently at 40 to 50 and 60 years old.
Being a celebrity can be very intoxicating and very addicting. And I've always been afraid of that, because I've grown up post-almost every child star out there who has gone wayward.
Mr. Cosby wanted to do a show not about an upper-middle-class black family, but an upper-middle-class family that happened to be black. Though it sounds like semantics, they're very different approaches.
Doing 'Malcolm and Eddie' was probably the foremost miserable years of my life.
African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.
People kind of have a misconception, because when someone calls me Theo and I correct them, say, 'No, my name is Malcolm,' they think I have an attitude about it and I don't want to be associated with the show.
Acting had been a hobby that turned into a career, the directing was a hobby that turned into a career, and music just really allowed me to find another way to express myself. I started playing bass in November 1996, and by June 1998 I was doing my first live show.
I planned so well for my post-'Cosby Show' life that I don't have to make desperate acting choices that conflict with what my values.
When I'm not working, I'm on the road with my band. Or I'm performing in poetry houses doing spoken work. So I've got another passion and another outlet that allows me to be creatively fulfilled and not sitting at home pulling my hair out waiting for the right role to come along.
